


Continuum Aurora

by paleogymnast



Series: Helix 'verse [4]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Dubious Consent, Genocide, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:55:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 125,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paleogymnast/pseuds/paleogymnast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More than two years after Jensen and his people escaped Earth and sought refuge on the distant world known as Aurora, the battle rages on. As Jensen struggles to forge alliances with new worlds and strives to find a way to rescue the tens of thousands of his own people still left in hiding on Earth, the enemy plots and schemes, each day coming a little closer to finding Jensen's new home... </p><p>How far would you go to save the ones you love? Can the price of freedom be too high? Jensen must find the answers for himself as he fights against impossible odds to uncover the truth, free his people, and find a place for himself in the world that he has built. Will Jensen succeed? Or will the darkest secret at the heart of the enemy's plan prove to be his undoing? (Part 3 in the Helix ’verse)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> **Acknowledgments**  
> 
> 
> Continuum Aurora was written for the 2013 [Spn_J2_BigBang](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com) on Livejournal. Continuum Aurora is also the third part in the Helix 'verse trilogy. The first two stories are [Springboard Helix](http://archiveofourown.org/works/219942) and [Helix Continuum](http://archiveofourown.org/works/452781/chapters/776896), which you can find here on AO3 along with a handy reference guide to the many science fiction references contained in the first book. You can read and make sense of _this_ story without having read those stories first, but to fully optimize your reading enjoyment, you may wish to check them out.
> 
> Many thanks to [Wendy](http://wendy.livejournal.com) and [The Highway Woman](http://thehighwaywoman.livejournal.com), the mods at the [Spn_J2_BigBang](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com) for all their help, hard work, inspiration, and flexibility on posting dates. You guys run a wonderful community and challenge, and you keep me coming back every year. Many, many thanks for all the awesome work you do!
> 
> I also want to give a huge shout out to my fabulous artist, [ktown01](http://ktown01.livejournal.com) for the beautiful and fabulous art she made to accompany this story. Please go to her [art masterpost]() to check out and comment on the amazing art she made for this story! Thank you, ktown, for putting up with my ridiculous work schedule and incredibly rough drafts and for making such beautiful art for the story!
> 
> Many thanks to my fabulous betas, sounding boards, cheerleaders, editors, and sanity preservers, CarlosT and [Engel82](http://engel82.livejournal.com). Without them, this fic would not have been possible. Please note I have tinkered with the fic since getting it back from them, and all remaining errors are my own.
> 
> Last but not least, many thanks to the wonderful participants at [omgspnbigbang](http://omgspnbigbang.livejournal.com) for putting up with me as their mod, for offering support, ideas, camaraderie, and for generally being kind, genuine, creative, and inspiring human beings. You guys gave me motivation to keep writing and always helped to remind me why I put myself through this crazy process of bigbang writing year in and year out. Thanks omgspnbigbangers!
> 
>  **Trigger warning:** Certain scenes, themes, and content in this story may be triggering for some. I have tried to hint at what those might be in the tags without giving too much away. Should you have any questions about triggers, potential triggers, or content, please ask me through personal message on livejournal at [paleogymnast.livejournal.com](http://paleogymnast.livejournal.com) or in the comments here.
> 
> For more notes about Continuum Aurora and its universe, please see the notes at the end of the story.

**Prologue**

_They say when you die your life flashes before your eyes. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s what happened when_ I _died. Everything I’d done, everything I’d seen, everyone I’d been, every future I could have had... a billion, billion milliseconds compressed in time and space—every moment of my life happening in the same instant. And at the heart of it all, the reason, the purpose, it all came back to_ him _. Jensen. The best man I ever knew. The brightest star in my sky. The love of my life. In that split second, the pause between my last heartbeat and oblivion, I knew it would all be alright._

_You see, a wise man once asked me what I would be willing to give for Jensen. For my people. I thought I knew the answer—and I did. Of course I would give my life. Only it’s not that simple. Because on the other side of that infinite moment when everything flashes, I’m nothing. I’m powerless. Dust in the wind and all that trite shit. My song’s been sung. Curtain closed on the great dance that was my life. And there’s nothing more I can do. But Jensen... he’s still out there, and he’s alone. And in that final instant, I worried for him._

_But then the blackness took me, and I was no more. And that’s where it gets complicated._

_You see this is the part where the stories all differ. No one agrees what happens after. I would have been satisfied with oblivion. I wasn’t expecting a bright light (and for the record, there wasn’t one), but what I wasn’t counting on was the lengths to which some people would go to destroy those who are different from them._

_So now,_ he’s _out there. A blank slate. An unknowing pawn. They mean for him to be the architect of our destruction... My people. Jensen. He’s supposed to be their doom..._

_Only thing is, he’s out there, wearing my face, and I’m stuck in here. Wherever here is._

_He’s not a bad guy, but he’s kind of naïve, and I’m not sure if I trust him. Not yet._

_And that is how I learned I never really understood the wise man’s question. Dying is easy. It’s what comes after that’s hard._

_My name is Misha Collins, and this is my story._

~~~

**June 2014 – High Earth Orbit**

Earth spun below him, a cloud-streaked swirl overlaid on an umber, azure, and emerald gem. Beautiful and flawed, as were the people who called it home. _Home_ —it echoed in Jensen’s soul, happy memories tinged with panic, sorrow, and pain. Whatever it once was to him and so many like him, Earth was home no more, inaccessible and inhospitable. The closest Jensen could come, perhaps would ever come, to touching Earth’s surface was standing here, looking down through the expansive viewport of a ship in orbit. So close, it seemed he could reach out and touch it, hold the swirling gem in his hand, if only he could cross the invisible barrier of the port’s forcefield. So far, the space between them infinite, the barrier impenetrable. Jensen was forever condemned to look on and remember, but never repatriate. Earth and its secrets were as lost to him and all Naiians in exile as if the Licinians had destroyed it.

_Maybe you should have let them. You’d be better off, and the humans certainly weren’t grateful._

He flinched and pushed the bitter, hateful voice aside. “No, I wouldn’t be better off, and everyone else would be lost. I care, even if they don’t,” he muttered to himself, blinking back the tears that still threatened to come when he thought of Misha, when he allowed himself to miss what Earth—no, her human inhabitants—had taken from him.

“You certainly do have a knack for brooding.” Only after Foalar spoke did Jensen hear the gentle padding of her feet on the decking.

“You certainly have a knack for sneaking up on people,” Jensen replied. He smiled—at least this time he hadn’t jumped. He was learning. 

“As you know, all Fropali are taught from childhood to observe without disturbing. That skill requires a necessary degree of stealth, which has... other applications,” Foalar replied with a hint of amusement. “Although I noticed I did not startle you this time, so perhaps your brooding was not as intense as I feared.”

Jensen turned and greeted his mentor with a wet-eyed smile. “I’m a telepath,” he shrugged, “somewhere along the way I figured out I couldn’t afford to immerse myself so completely I lost my situational awareness.” That brought another pang of regret and nostalgia. Long gone were the days where Jensen could lose himself in a daydream, escaping reality to his imagined world full of spaceships, aliens, and heroics. Sometime after his reality became a never ending drama that resembled a twisted, tragic version of his dream world and he became responsible for the welfare of an entire race, the familiar escape lost its appeal.

Foalar cocked her head in the Fropali equivalent of a nod. “I realized by certain metrics of time today is an anniversary for you. In my experience, anniversaries can have great emotional significance to people from Earth.”

Jensen snorted. “That they do,” he agreed before turning back to the viewport and letting out a sigh. He raised his hand and let his fingers skim the forcefield, leaning forward until the amethyst sparks of contact swelled into a soothing purple glow that surrounded his outstretched palm. “Humans—” he started, cringing a little as he caught his error, “and I suppose Naiians too,” he added more softly, “seek closure. When we lose someone—I mean when they die or disappear—we look for some way to tie up loose ends, find peace, come to terms with what happened.”

“Ah, yes, I am becoming quite familiar with the religious rituals and beliefs and other funerary rights of the peoples currently and formerly of Earth,” Foalar replied, her voice taking on a musical tone that Jensen recognized was meant to soothe. 

“Even for those of us who aren’t religious, it helps to know what happened—to have a grave site to visit to help focus our memories when we need to draw on our memories and experiences with a departed loved one or to know we’ve followed that loved one’s last wishes and spread their ashes in their favorite place. It... It helps a lot.” Jensen’s voice broke on the last sentence. He leaned harder into the forcefield, feeling the electric tingle wash over him, wishing it would numb him to the pain or provide some answers, anything to stop feeling like _this_.

“I didn’t know Misha for very long, certainly not nearly as long as you, but I knew him well enough to say he would not want you to feel trapped like this,” Foalar said soothingly. 

The air shifted around Jensen as he felt Foalar’s take several silent steps closer. 

“I am sincerely sorry you do not have the answers you seek, but you need to believe it is not as hopeless as you think. The current imbalance will not persist forever.” She spoke the words on a breath, just loud enough for Jensen’s ears to decipher, but she projected layers of meaning—compassion, loss, kindness, generosity, fond remembrance—that soon had the tears falling from Jensen’s eyes.

He struggled to speak around the growing lump in his throat. “I don’t mean to sound bitter or ungrateful, but I really can’t see it.” He leaned closer to the viewport, pressing harder, ignoring the growing electronic whine as the forcefield protested his assault. It wouldn’t give—no, it was designed to withstand forces thousands of times greater, but the sound suited his mood. “Why should I have faith? There’s no guarantee anything will get any better. The humans have made up their minds. They want us all dead or _converted_ ,” he spat, choking on the last word. I’m never going down there again, there’s no going back. I’m never going to know what happened to Misha, not for sure. I won’t know what they did with his body, or what they told his family. I’ll never get that place to go to and remember him in peace.” He pushed off the forcefield, spun on his heel, and glared at Foalar. 

“I can never go back to our home, our jobs, our school, our friends. My life—our life together—has been erased!” Jensen threw up his hands in frustration as anger and hatred battled with pain and sorrow and threatened to take over. “Misha was a hero—so many of us were—we fought and bled and died for them and they’ve replaced it with _lies_...” His voice rose and cracked again. “And more of our people are trapped down there, in danger, being told they are monsters and abominations, and I—” Jensen jabbed at his chest with jackknifed fingers. “A—and I didn’t even get to bury my husband’s body.” He shook his hope, “There’s no way back. I—I’ve failed and...” He folded in on himself, arms slapping hard against his sides as he lost the battle against tears. 

They stayed like that for a few minutes. Jensen and Foalar alone in the room, the jewel of Earth a backdrop, silence the only accompaniment to Jensen’s quiet sobs. Foalar didn’t speak, didn’t move. After a while, Jensen’s tears began to subside, and he started to feel like a fool. There were at least a hundred thousand—maybe more—Naiians still trapped on Earth, and here he was feeling sorry for himself? Jensen was just grateful no one else was there to see his little tantrum. It was bad enough Foalar had been there, he hated to look childish and immature in her eyes...

But Jensen realized he wasn’t sensing any disapproval, disappointment, or disgust from her. Curious, he looked up, wiping the tears from his eyes and struggling to compose himself.

“Jensen,” Foalar began in a tone he’d head only rarely—the last time he could recall hearing it was when she had convinced him to stop defining himself in human terms. “You are right that the situation is grim at the moment. Right now Earth is closed to you and all Naiians. Those in power on Earth are waging war against you and keeping secrets about your people’s fate. Even with my protection you cannot set foot on the surface of your former home. But the situation is untenable. The control the current leaders of ORDA have wielded over the populace cannot last. You are forgetting they do not, as you might say, hold all the cards.”  
“There are no guarantees the situation will change. Their power is firmly rooted, the people are scared, there—”

“Do you understand why ORDA, as you knew it, survived in secret as long as it did?” Foalar interrupted.

Jensen cocked his head, confused. “They ruled with an iron fist, controlled every aspect of our lives, and disappeared or murdered us if we didn’t obey,” Jensen began, “just like they’re doing now, only they want to kill us all.”

“No, not just like,” Foalar disagreed.

Jensen began to protest, anger surging through him. He respected his mentor and sometime protector, he did, but what did she know about ORDA and how it had treated its people? She hadn’t loved through it, experienced the fear, felt trapped...

“I will not dispute that ORDA was coercive—Draconian, I believe is the term—nor will I diminish your experience. But ORDA was as successful as it was because ultimately almost everyone agreed on a few key points.”

Jensen’s jaw clicked shut with a snap. “Agreed?” He could feel a vein throbbing in his neck. “What precisely did we agree—”

“You agreed in protecting Earth and her people. You recognized the risk to yourselves and others if what you could do and what was out here was widely known. You disagreed as to the manner and methods of keeping those secrets, you disagreed about how much disclosure was wise and what degree of risk was acceptable, but because you all had the same goals, almost everyone went along with the program. There was a certain degree of personal objection and permitted coercion, but you all made sacrifices.”

Foalar let the words hang in the air, and Jensen blinked in surprise. He had never quite thought about it in those terms. 

“But we—Naiians, we didn’t—”

You accepted there was no way out of service. You tolerated hostility, distrust and bigotry from some humans. You agreed to responsibilities that made you uncomfortable. You lived with the risk your superiors would decide to commit your body to research and experimentation. Naiians and humans worked in tandem. You shared leadership, shared responsibilities on and off world. You policed each other. True, the risks and sacrifices were not identical, but they were mutual... shared... equal. That was why you thrived for so long.”

“But...” Jensen knew there had to be a ‘but’ in there somewhere. 

“But now a relative _handful_ of humans are trying to control the destiny of a planet. They have allied themselves with a faction of an alien race that tried to destroy Earth, while turning their backs on many long-time alliances. Those alliances that remain are fractured and strained.” Foalar clasped her hands in front of her and began to walk around Jensen taking slow, silent steps.

He turned and followed her progress, hanging back as she gazed out on Earth below. There it was… so close, but yet so far, a home lost. A promise unfulfilled. And Jensen wondered if he would ever be able to make good on his word. He _would_ be back.

~~~

**September 2013—ORDA Medical Facility, Texas, Earth**

“What’s the status of the prisoner, is he stable?” General Bellman asked striding into medical and projecting and air of complete displeasure. 

Alexis Imogene Hanniger, M.D., Ph.D., felt her back straighten despite herself. She wasn’t military as she was very fond of pointing out, but the general had that effect on people, even her. 

Dr. Hanniger watched as everyone in the room around her broke off their argument and came to attention. The military contingent snapped off crisp salutes while the civilians straightened up and projected appropriate decorum, much like Alexis herself was doing. Well... all the civilians but one. If anything he was just looking more surly and disgruntled than he had whilst throwing a temper tantrum moments before General Bellman walked in the room.

“He’s stable enough, for the time being,” Major Corrigan replied. 

“We’re discussing prepping him for additional surgery, ma’am,” Colonel Sharpe added with a polite nod. 

“And I’m telling you we need to bring in real experts before we so much as touch him, unless you want to have a very dead prisoner on your hands!” the very surly civilian doctor exclaimed.

Every eye in the room turned toward the source of the outburst.

“And I told you I don’t care if god himself wants you on this project. You shut up and show a little respect or I’ll have you escorted from the premises in a body bag,” Colonel Johansson threatened, taking two steps toward the irate doctor and loomed.

Bellman looked from one person to the next, her eyebrow rising higher and higher, muscle in her jaw ticking. 

Sensing the need to defuse the situation, Alexis pulled herself away from the bank of monitors where she’d been observing the latest spat and positioned herself in both Colonels’ line of sight. “General,” she said as soothingly as possible. “I’m afraid the boys were having a small difference of opinion before you arrived.”

Bellman’s eyes turned on her, gaze fixing her, piercing like lasers. “As I recall I put _you_ in charge if these gentlemen.”

Alexis swallowed hard and resisted the urge to lower her eyes in submission. She had understated how angry Bellman was, and now was definitely not the time to show weakness.

Not pausing for Alexis to answer, Bellman turned to the two colonels in the room and continued her tirade. “And you! Care to explain why not one, but two Colonels are standing around bickering like a couple of tweenaged girls at a Twilight convention?” 

“I’m sorry ma’am,” Johansson started. 

“You’d better be. Last I checked, you weren’t even assigned to this project. You were ordered to deliver—”

Johansson held up a small egg-shaped device and rocked it side to side as if explaining his presence.

“Eh, never mind,” Bellman continued with a dismissive waive of her hand. “And you,” she continued rounding on the surly civilian doctor, “who the fuck are you and what are you doing on my base?”

“Mark Sheppard, M.D., Ph.D., immunologist and forensic pathologist,” the doctor responded, holding out his hand for the general to shake it. 

Bellman just glared at Sheppard and his outstretched hand with one eyebrow cocked high and a contemptuous glare on her face. 

Alexis couldn’t suppress a laugh. 

Thankfully, Bellman ignored her. 

Sheppard dropped his hand, but didn’t look chagrinned or defeated in the slightest. “Colonel Sharpe recruited me.”

“I thought you were bringing in Picardo,” Bellman asked crossing her arms as she scowled at Sharpe.

“If you recall, I was trying to recruit Picardo and Sheppard,” Sharpe countered.

“And Picardo?” Bellman asked, glancing around the room hurriedly, eyes flicking from ine person to the next. 

“Proved a little more... illusive than expected,” Sharpe admitted. 

“Are you telling me he’s in the wind?” Bellman demanded.

Sharpe looked away. 

“How much does he know?” Bellman pressed. 

“Not enough to be dangerous. We never told him anything but the cover story. He told me yes, then managed to skip town when I sent an R team to pick him up.”

That was the first Alexis had heard of Sharpe’s blunder. “You sent an R team to collect a civilian scientist? How stupid are you?” She couldn’t stop herself from adding. Of course there was another piece of information about Picardo, about how he’d worked closely with Admiral Hodge, been on his staff… If Bellman knew, she’d blow a gasket. So Alexis said nothing. Kept her opinion to herself and let Sharpe sweat.

Sharpe opened his mouth to answer, but the general cut him off before he could speak. “Don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question—”

Alexis nodded. 

“—And we have far more pressing matters to discuss,” Bellman added. “For example, the prisoner’s status. Is he stable or not?”

“He is stable—” Sharpe began.

“For now!” Sheppard snarked. 

“Explain,” Bellman ordered. 

She wasn’t looking to Alexis yet, so she held her tongue. Alexis had already spent enough breath arguing with the General over the results of her shortsightedness and she was sure to be arguing again before the very long day was through.


	2. A Universe Changed

**February 2015—Auroran Diplomatic Mission to Orellia**

The talks were in their third day, and still Jensen did not have a proposed treaty, agreement, or contract to show for his efforts. All he could think of was the Council’s orders, the half-built… never mind he wasn’t going to let his mind drift there. Not now. People were counting on him, tensions were rising, and he needed to deliver the goods.

But so far, all they had done was talk and talk around possibilities, eventualities, veiled threats... Jensen was trying to play the negotiations conservatively, not show his hand, not appear desperate. But the dance had gone on too long, and he was beginning to realize the real targets of these talks would not respond to anything but a direct approach.

Jensen glanced sideways at the other representatives gathered around the long oval table, taking in the Ecati ambassador to his right, and Orellian ambassador to his left. Old friends, new friends, and arrayed around the table, a whole lot of people and races and governments he barely knew. It was a brave new world for the Naiians—trying to make their way in the galaxy without any of Earth’s allies, avoiding contact with those who might betray them to ORDA.

“Ambassador Ata’kahn, Ambassador Pretep,” Jensen began speaking in Fropali, spreading his hands palms up on the table, “it is my hope that my people and yours, the Jharr’at’chep and the Szapae can come to an agreement. It is my sincere wish that our peoples and the nations we represent become friends, and if the course of time so wishes, allies. It is also my hope our nations can agree to an exchange of resources. Your respective nations have supplies,” he nodded at Ata’kahn, “and strategic positions,” he nodded at Pretep, “that would serve my people and my nation immensely. In exchange, we are prepared to offer medical and scientific knowledge tailored to meet your people’s and your nations’ greatest needs.” He paused, bowing his head as a sign of respect, before looking both ambassadors in the eye. A decidedly human—or rather—Naiian gesture. “I am aware of my people’s relatively weak bargaining position, and I acknowledge we are offering something ephemeral in exchange for the tangible and concrete, but we are prepared to offer more as we are able and to share knowledge gathered far and wide.”

“But you’re not prepared to let any of us set foot on your precious planet, are you?” Ata’kahn, the Jharr’at’chep Ambassador said with a high-pitched laugh, hir humanoid features twisting into what anyone from Earth would recognize as an expression of derision. 

To Jensen’s right the Ecati ambassador stiffened, eyes widening then narrowing. Jensen could interpret Ecati emotions far more clearly than the still-unfamiliar emotions of the Jharr’at’chep. _Disgust. Offense. Contempt. Fear._ He knew some of the emotions were the Ecati ambassador’s reactions to Ata’kahn, while others were reflections of Ata’kahn’s own emotions… Jensen could pretty easily figure which were which, and it certainly didn’t bode well for negotiations.

Careful not to let the revelations show, Jensen answered Ata’kahn’s question. “Travel to Aurora is something we wish to share with friends, and something we would be happy to consider in the future, perhaps the very near future. Surely you recognize the necessity of protecting the strategic assets and security of one’s nation, one’s people?”

Ata’kahn laughed again. “Frankly, I do not understand why we are having this conversation at all.”

No one else at the table responded, including Ambassador Pretep, but he had a feeling the negotiations had just gone from bad to worse. Much worse.

~~~

“What, did you have another incident?” asked Ipani.

Jensen turned to see her slide gracefully from her perch half-on one of the railings that bordered the walkway. She approached Jensen, her movements catlike and fluid as she easily wove her way through the crowd. 

Jensen couldn’t help the smile that took over his face. Ipani was tall, lanky, and slender for a Fropali, so different from Foalar and many of the other Fropali he knew, yet in some ways so similar. She always seemed to know exactly the right thing to say. While she tended to ruffle more feathers than did Foalar, her comments always cut to the heart of the matter... If Jensen knew Foalar, and at this point he would wager he knew her as well as anyone did, she had designed this encounter for Ipani and Jensen’s mutual benefit. Foalar knew how—lonely—exhausting Jensen found diplomacy, especially when he was attending negotiations alone without even Katie to keep him sane, and Ipani could be the perfect tether to sanity.

For Ipani, well... Jensen was observant and could read between the lines. He knew Ipani’s heritage likely encompassed more than your average Fropali, and she had already encountered... resistance and harassment, not so much from the Fropali, but from those who relied on them to solve their squabbles and differences. She was also young, a student, learning... 

_Foalar set me up... She wants to show me I can teach, that the sum of my experiences is more than this... That I have something to offer even when everything seems to blow up in my face..._ Typical. Jensen certainly didn’t feel wise. He didn’t feel old enough to bear the experience required (except for those times when he felt ancient, exhausted beyond his years, so old he could not remember the innocence of youth or what it was like to not be at war).

“Not an incident, exactly,” Jensen said, as Ipani slipped into step beside him. He kept his voice low so only she could hear him and chose his words carefully. “It was something someone said...”

“Someone?” she asked, nudging his arm in an almost _human_ gesture.

They walked in silence down the long causeway past stall after stall of crafts, food, and nonperishable goods as the small speck that was the diplomatic retreat grew slowly, but steadily larger.

“The Jharr’at’chep ambassador,” Jensen offered at last, pushing down the spike of pain that returned as he thought of the bland tone the green-feathered ambassador had used to deliver hir comment. Right now Jensen was glad he had come alone, he was projecting everywhere. Around other Naiians, the empathic and telepathic bleed off would be unbearable.

“What did ze say?” Ipani prompted, “Or do?”

Jensen let out a long sigh, feeling some of the emotional tension leave him. “The ambassador said ze didn’t understand why they were negotiating with us, with me, because Naiians were clearly so... human. Ze said humans are a powerful species with lots of planets under their control, and it... Ze thought it was unwise to get involved in internal civil matters with a fractious group.”

“And that hurt, calling you human, was a bad comparison to make?” Ipani asked.

Jensen pulled up short, stopping so abruptly a passing antigrav bike had to swerve to avoid a collision. He had opened his mouth to tell Ipani off for her obliviousness, but the scolding died on his tongue. Ipani was very young by Fropali standards, and while Foalar had taken Ipani under her tutelage, Ipani’s education was just beginning. She had only been out in the wider galaxy for about six months... which was both an eternity and a picosecond in terms of interplanetary politics. So he calmed himself, and gave Ipani an answer that would actually help her learn. “It’s a bad thing to say. Hurtful, although I don’t know if the ambassador intended it to be.”

Ipani looked up at him imploringly. 

“The human government is trying to annihilate the entire Naiian species. Some of us they try to... They have a forced genetic conversion process. They try to make some Naiians human and the rest of us—” Jensen closed his eyes and swallowed, forcing back the swell of tears, rage, and loss that accompanied Misha’s image in his mind. “The rest of us they just kill,” he whispered. 

Ipani’s forehead furrowed, her brow moving in concern as her eyes grew wide. “This is why you are at war.”

“It’s a part of it,” Jensen agreed, because of course it was never that simple. 

“So this is the worst thing the ambassador could have said, no?” Ipani murmured as they resumed their trek across the open estuary.

“Not necessarily,” Jensen answered half to himself, looking out at the too-green sedges and grasses waving above the surface of the blue-green water as large avians swooped and called in the distance little shadows against the gold and orange sky. Pavitenal was a beautiful world, but to Jensen it looked like the entire landscape had been cross-processed like a photograph. He found himself missing home... that it was green skies and purple seas that he missed and not the blue on blue of Earth was more telling than he wanted to admit. He glanced to the side and discovered Ipani was still staring at him expectantly. “An Ecati ambassador once thought I was Licinian and took great offense at my presence as a facilitator because of it.”

“And this was worse?” Ipani asked.

“No,” Jensen shook his head as he spoke, habit borne of countless negotiations—always give others as many points to interpret as possible. “Not worse, equally bad, under the circumstances.”

“Why would ze think you were Lic—lici— What did the Licin— Licinians do?”

“Several factions of their government want to kill all Naiians, and they almost destroyed my birth planet. Like they had destroyed the Ecati homeworld.”

“Oh,” Ipani replied, her features a mixture of confusion and dawning realization. “Why would....”

“Why would two different ambassadors think I resemble members of two different species, or why do two different species want to kill my people?” Jensen asked.

“Both, either? It is rude to ask, but...”

“But Foalar says you need to start asking difficult questions to understand, to perceive from all sides,” Jensen supplied. 

Ipani spread her hands in the Fropali equivalent of a nod as her head bobbed up and down. She’d started to adopt many of Jensen’s mannerisms in the short time they’d been working together.

Jensen smiled despite the discomfort the issue presented. “My species is very young. We’ve only been around for about 5,000 years.”

Ipani opened her mouth to raise a question, but Jensen held up his hand and she acquiesced.

“My species arose through genetic engineering, not ordinary evolution. We share a genetic heritage with both humans and Licinians, but we are distinct from both.”

“But—do you resemble—why would—” Ipani started and stopped.

“Yes and no, and it depends,” Jensen answered, his smile growing wider. Now this was something familiar, something his years as a lawyer on Earth had left him well prepared for. “Sense—sensory input and perception of the universe are different across various species, and within a species they vary from individual to individual. What senses a person has, how they prioritize them, what their unconscious biases are... those aren’t constants.”

“I... I think I understand,” Ipani hedged, her expression one of intense concentration and somewhat perplexed wonderment. “But I admit I still do not quite... perhaps specifics?” she asked, keeping her melodic voice low and quiet as they passed the causeway marker that indicated they were 1/3 of the way across.

“To species who rely primarily on sight, who perceive light between roughly 390 and 700 nanometers, Naiians and Humans appear very similar, if you rely on that sort of sight alone, you could say we are indistinguishable. We have the same range of heights, weights, skin tones, hair color, the same arrangement of appendages and facial features.”

“Humans rely on sight such as this. They cannot tell you from them? This is part of why they... hate you?”

Jensen cast a sly glance at Ipani. She was good, so perceptive already, slipping into the questions that were really statements. He could see why Foalar was so impressed with her. Of course some of her conclusions and assumptions were wrong, hence her still being in training. But considering how little Ipani knew about humans, Earth, ORDA, Naiians, or even Licinians... He was very impressed she was more right than wrong.

“It’s not that simple,” he explained.

Ipani’s forehead creased further. 

“Some humans don’t know there are any differences to look for. They don’t know we exist.” He smiled at Ipani’s shocked look. “A lot of humans from Earth don’t know life exists outside their planet. They don’t even realize they have a true planetary government... Their government is very... secretive.” He took a deep breath, bracing for the part of the conversation that was hardest. “Humans don’t rely on just their eyes though. If they look at our strength, speed, how fast we move, our body temperature, how we react to different atmospheres and climates, how we heal... Then—then we look nothing like them. So while part of their resentment is definitely tied to our similarity in appearance, it’s all too easy for humans to tell us apart.”

“There are more of your people, stuck? With humans?”

“There are still Naiians on Earth who are constantly in danger because of how easy it is to tell us apart.”

“And the Jharr’at’chep ambassador—”

“Probably relies on sight or sensory input in the same range of electromagnetic frequencies as humans,” Jensen confirmed. 

The walked along in silence for a few minutes while Ipani processed the new information.

“And the Ecati ambassador... their species relies on other senses. The perception is different? There is some way you are similar to the Licinians?” she asked at last.

“How much do you know about the Licinians?” he began.

“Not much.” She held her arms close together in a distinctly Fropali gesture. “There are treaties, I believe?” The rippling of the fur on her head suggested her embarrassment at her ignorance.

“The Licinians are... complicated. Like the humans on Earth, a lot of the Licinian people have been ignorant of their government’s choices, even many within the government were not aware of what the other factions were doing.” It felt strange to defend the Licinians in any form, years of ingrained hatred balking at the sympathy, but in the years since the most devious faction of the Licinian government had nearly succeeded in destroying the Earth, forever altering interplanetary politics in the process and leaving Jensen with permanent injuries, he’d learned a lot more subtlety. Given the situation on Earth... he had also gained a lot of sympathy for the average Licinian who had no knowledge (and no real way to learn) of the atrocities their government was committing in their name. 

“What did their government do?” Ipani asked, her voice soft and whisper-quiet. 

“As a species the Licinians are chameloids. Their bodies adapt to survive in different climates. They can use different gasses for respiration, tolerate a wide range of temperatures, pressures, pH... They can survive a lot of places no one else can. They can even change their appearance to blend in with their surroundings,” Jensen swallowed. “They’re also telepathic, empathic, and they developed a symbiotic relationship with biomechanical organisms that enable them to travel by wormhole. A long, long time ago, their homeworld grew overcrowded. So they started expanding, colonizing different worlds, harvesting resources from places no one else could go. But it wasn’t enough to sustain their population, their lifestyle, their ambitions. So they started terraforming planets to make them more desirable to Licinians, and uninhabitable by others. They went to worlds that already had life, even sentient life, and they destroyed it.”

He stopped and turned to Ipani. “Your people stopped them. They brokered a treaty among all the known civilizations in the galaxy, and as more emerged, they added their names. The Licinians could only terraform planets if they were lifeless or had only the most basic organisms. Any violation and they would suffer intervention of the full force of the Fropali fleet. 

“For a while it worked. But the Licinians grew restless and as methods of interstellar travel improved, there was more space for the Fropali to cover and more places for the Licinians to go where no one would notice. And a faction of their leadership decided if they could get violate the treaty and not get caught, then it was ok. They targeted worlds too early in their development to be able to defend themselves, too young to have ventured into the stars. Sometimes they waited and only took a planet later if the Licinians faced a supply shortage. Sometimes they intentionally wiped out entire races they thought would someday pose a threat. Sometimes they waited until a sentient race was venturing into the galaxy and then terraformed the planet to cover their tracks.”

“They tried to do this to your homeworld?” Ipani asked.

“No,” Jensen shook his head. “Not my homeworld. The world where I was born, Earth.”

Ipani’s eyed went wide and round and her mouth gaped as realization dawned.

“They had been to Earth before, several times, most recently 5,000 years ago, when a team of Licinian operatives was supposed to render the planet uninhabitable to all but Licinians. They did not, and when the government realized Earth held the key to revealing their treachery, they tried to finish what they had started. I stopped them, and in doing so, I fulfilled the legacy of my ancestors. 

“And then your people showed up in time to stop them from trying again. And the breadth and depth of the Licinian crimes were revealed to their people and the rest of the galaxy.”

“You said your species was engineered?” Ipani asked.

Jensen nodded. 

“You share genetic heritage with the Licinians and the Humans because the Licinians, those sent to destroy Earth 5,000 years ago engineered your kind.”

Jensen nodded again, glad Ipani understood him without him relying on speech. 

“But you do not consider Earth your home?”

“No,” he said aloud. “Earth is a place we were made. We served a purpose, but we were never truly welcome. The Licinians who engineered us made sure we would... appear like humans based on their understanding of human sense and perception. But as soon as we were discovered, we were... pressed into service for our skills. Aurora, my homeworld, began as a colony world where humans sent us when we—” Jensen’s voice broke. It hadn’t always been that bad. At one point, ORDA had been more just, and many Naiians had been complicit in their oppression going farther and oppressing humans themselves within the ORDA ranks. Then again, they had been content to share the planet and it had been humans, not Naiians who had pushed for the creation of ORDA in the first place. “Sometimes people, humans and Naiian alike went to the colony on Aurora by choice. It was often a reward. But it was just as frequently exile, or a place they sent us when we had... outlived our usefulness. For a long time my people went along with it. Many were complicit in our treatment. Some of us treated humans very, very badly. But for most of that time—”

“Humans needed you and the Licinians did not know you existed,” Ipani observed.

“Yes.”

“You share many traits with the Licinians, and that is what the Ecati ambassador perceived,” Ipani continued. “But it was particularly painful, distasteful, because of what the Licinians had done to you.”

“Not just to us. To the Ecati. They destroyed the Ecati homeworld, nearly caused the extinction of their species, and the generations of Ecati alive today bear that pain through their species’ empathy.”

“Ah,” Ipani acknowledged. “And this empathy is a focus, a priority among the Ecati’s sensory inputs. They encountered you and perceived the similarities between you and the Licinians—you are both telepaths, empaths, you both adapt to your environment, and you seemed... the same to them. They took your presence as an insult rather than the salve it should have been.”

“But they came to understand their mistake, because they are open-minded and aware that not all species perceive the universe in the same way, that not all species share values or priorities, and even that species often have very different gradations in their senses. One individual’s near-identical is as sector away from another individual’s point of view.

“The Jharr’at’chep ambassador is not open-minded,” Ipani observed.

“No, ze’s not,” Jensen agreed. 

Ipani nodded, inching one foot forward to signal her wish to resume walking. 

Jensen took the hint and started at a brisk stroll. 

“May I ask how you perceive the universe? On what senses _you_ rely?”

Jensen smiled. “Sure.” It was a personal question, but it would help Ipani on her path to becoming the great negotiator Foalar knew she would someday be. “Naiians rely somewhat on eyesight, and the spectrum of light we see is similar to humans, but not identical. Vision isn’t as important to us either because we’re telepathic. It’s—it’s different than what you might expect.”

“I didn’t know I was Naiian when I was growing up. I thought I was human. I didn’t know there were other inhabited worlds or that my world had a unified government making decisions about interplanetary affairs and fighting wars with other species. I didn’t know that my people had been venturing out into the galaxy for thousands of years. I didn’t know I was telepathic. But despite all I didn’t know, I still relied on my telepathy every day without realizing what it was. With training and awareness, it’s a sense that dominates. I perceive sentient minds around me. For those who are neither empathic nor telepathic, they’re sort of fuzzy and indistinct. I have no access to their minds, but I know they are there. Other Naiians are familiar, easily recognized and perceived as unique individuals. Other empaths and telepaths feel different. For all our similarities, Licinians’ minds feel very alien to me, and humans... They feel very different too. 

“It’s passive. I don’t have to work to sense it,” he added.

“When you... perceive me...” Ipani asked, suddenly hesitant.

“Yes, I can sense your telepathic potential... You’re untrained though. So I assume you are somewhat—unsure about it and don’t want it to be widely known.”

Ipani looked down at the ground “Foalar tells me it could be a great asset, a tool other Fropali don’t have that could make me an especially successful mediator.”

“But it also gives some people a reason to fear you, or suggest you’re cheating at mediation.” Jensen supplied.

“It is not...” Ipani’s speech was uncharacteristically halting. “It is not an expected trait of the Fropali. My species... the species is supposed to be insightful, not...”

“Actually able to ‘read minds.’“ Jensen suggested.

“Yes, that is what they think, anyway.”

“It’s not usually like that. Nontelepaths don’t realize that minds are not open books, nor are they accessible like databases we can search and download,” he said catching Ipani’s eye. “It’s a common misconception.”

Ipani nodded. “Still, I would prefer—”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Jensen reassured.

“Good,” Ipani murmured, looking down at her fine-boned, lightly furred hands, which were clasped in front of her. “I just want to be able to share it, or not, myself. My choice,” she added, looking up at Jensen.

“I know. Believe me, I know.” Jensen knew what it was like to be outed, to have the choice taken from you. He’d experienced it time and time again, first with regard to his sexuality, then with regard to his Marker status... Sometimes it was well-intentioned, more often than not it was a power play. An act of control and domination. “I would never share your secrets without your consent. Even in my mind, I will safeguard them.”

“Thank you,” Ipani said, sounding genuinely grateful. 

“The humans, at least those affiliated with Earth, they don’t know we’re telepaths, Naiians I mean,” Jensen said, his voice barely more than a whisper. 

“How could they not?” Ipani asked, her features going slack with shock.

“Some suspect. But most don’t know the Licinians are telepathic, for one, so they don’t suspect. Most don’t know the extent of our... engineering. Some honestly believe we are humans who are diseased, infected with alien DNA or a terrestrial virus that corrupts our minds. They aren’t all that interested in learning about us. And then there’s the obvious stuff we can do, like open wormholes and survive temperatures they can’t. It provides a plausible explanation for what all the extra neurotransmitters in our bodies do.”

“And if they found out?” Ipani asked 

“It would be very, very bad. Disastrous. It could possibly spell the end for my people. For those left on Earth or other human-controlled worlds, it could mean mass execution.”

“But that’s not the only thing about the ambassador’s comment that upset you,” Ipani observed with a crook of her head.

Jensen’s eyes grew sad. He’d like to say he was squinting in the midafternoon sun, but that wasn’t it. “Ze implied that if my people were just a distinct subgroup of another species, it would be fine for the rest of our species to exterminate and torture us and inappropriate for outsiders to interfere... It’s one thing to be against butting into other people’s business, but when someone is asking for help, begging for asylum or support, to just turn a blind eye, wash one’s hands of it...” he glanced at Ipani to ensure she was following his idioms.

“This has happened before... not on your homeworld, but Earth?”

“Time and time again, entire peoples destroyed in the process.”

“You doubt whether you would want to ally your people with a culture that would be so cavalier toward suffering and the right to self-determination,” Ipani observed.

“I am certain I do not want such an allegiance,” Jensen replied, then sighed. “But the possibility of an ally with the resources of the Jharr’at’chep is not easily turned down. Even if we are not allies, the possibility of a safe haven for my people, the opportunities for trade, for resources we so desperately need… I can’t just walk away while there is still a possibility of a positive outcome. I cannot let my own preferences and emotions cloud my judgment or color my actions.”

Ipani bobbed her head in a disturbingly human—or Naiian—like move. “I believe I understand. You are straining under the weight of speaking for your people, and…” she cocked her head more, “troubled because you do not know if you can trust Jharr’at’chep even if a deal is struck.”

“You’re very perceptive,” he observed. “Your insight serves you well,” Jensen added, the corner of his mouth crooking up in a grin at the reference, before he schooled his features into an expression more befitting the seriousness of the situation before them. “What concerns me the most is that the Ambassador must have had contact with ORDA—that’s Earth’s planetary government—or one of the Licinian factions allied with them. I have to wonder how much we can trust any offer that is extended.”

“Surely a diplomat would not renege on a treaty? Nor would his people?” Ipani asked, shocked.

Jensen winced at her apparent naïveté. It wasn’t her fault. The Fropali were so honorable and the Licinian… conspiracy, for lack of a better term, was one of the few examples of outright diplomatic dishonesty with which Ipani was familiar. And that had involved individuals generations removed from the treaty’s signatories choosing to disregard its terms, not active dissembling and contempt. “Ipani, you’ll find a great number of people in this universe are anything but honorable or trustworthy. Just as Earth’s government lies to its people, just as the Licinians lied to their people, governments lie to each other. They cheat and steal and betray. They seek the easy way out when it suits their purposes.”

Ipani looked shocked, her eyes wide and fur flattened.

“Not all, definitely not all. But my people, my homeworld is in a relatively weak position. We have a lot of knowledge—especially a lot of what we might call _dirt_ … secrets about others that could be powerful or harmful in the wrong hands—but we do not have much power, or military might, and we do not have many allies. Our strengths lie in concealment, escape, survival, even deception. If not for the kindness and generosity of _your_ people, we might have died out or been captured long ago.” Jensen stared off into the horizon, keeping the tears from his eyes, blinking back rage as he squeezed his hands into fists. “And as generous and kind as your leader, Foalar, is, there are others among your people, in your government, and in the governments of allies who do not agree.”

“Surely they do not wish to deny you the right to self-determination!” Ipani asked.

“Some people see this as an internal dispute. They disagree with Foalar’s decision to recognize Naiians as a separate sovereign species.”

“They agree with the ambassador,” she said in understanding.

Jensen nodded, knowing she would understand. “And others feel your people have given mine enough help, expended enough resources, or that if they get any _more_ involved, they will suck us all into an interplanetary war, a galactic war that would violate the peace treaties your people have spent millennia defending.”

Ipani was silent for long minutes, processing, as they approached the complex that served as their housing and base of operations for the duration of the summit.

“Thank you, Jensen,” Ipani said as they entered the complex, “for sharing your insight and perspective. I have learned a lot.”

“No problem,” Jensen said honestly. If only solving the Naiians’ current predicament was as easy as providing learning experiences for Ipani.

~~~

**January 2015—Southern Maine, Earth**

Nicki closed the door behind her and followed Alona into their “private study.” It was one of the great advantages of running a B&B as cover. Everyone expected them to have private areas of the main house where guests weren’t invited. That and the opportunity to make legitimate money were two of the main draws that had led them to open the B&B in the first place. No one needed to know how much more extensive the private rooms were compared to a _normal_ B &B, and no one needed to know about the extensive underground network of rooms and tunnels that linked the complex. Not even the planning commission knew that part.

As Nicki surveyed the room before her, she was well aware this was the most dangerous part of what she and Alona did. They shared a glance, gave each other a knowing nod of acknowledgement, and connected telepathically to confirm they were both on the same page. Yes, the man was Naiian and they were both in agreement. They wanted to proceed. 

Having that confirmation was no guarantee. And that was why this was so dangerous. Every encounter bore the risk the Naiian wasn’t ready to accept her true origins, or worse, already believed the official government position—that Naiians were humans infected with a dangerous, occasionally deadly, engineered bioweapon. A virus that could be transmitted sexually. A plague that altered an individual’s brain chemistry giving them destructive impulses, altering their personality. The virus was supposed to cause several easily detectable side effects, such as lower body temperature, rare drug allergies, and markedly increased tolerance for climate extremes—that were the common ways Naiians were identified. And why not, when the truth sounded more like science fiction?

Even if a Naiian wasn’t actively collaborating with the government, they might have been followed or have family members who were looking for them or freak out later and bring the government’s wrath down upon them all. And if they were collaborating, well... Nicki and Alona had both heard the rumors, and they knew enough about the organization behind them to know they were likely true.

“Have a seat,” Alona said, gesturing to one of the armchairs that framed the fireplace. A real wood fire burned behind the grate casting a warm orange glow around the room.

The man was looking skittish. His eyes darted left and right and up and down, covering as much ground as possible. His hand rested on the back of the chair, but he’d made no move to sit down.

Alona started talking, just small talk, chattering about the weather and the Fourth of July, and where was the best place to watch fireworks. 

The man seemed to realize he was being handled, and his hands didn’t stop twitching, but his focus diverted to Alona enough to give Nicki time to finish her preparations. 

Nicki turned back to the door and locked it, turning the obvious deadbolt, the less obvious bar at the base, and finally she stepped to the side and tapped her code into the touchpad they’d wired into the door, hidden behind a loose switch plate, and activated the forcefield. Next, she switched on the white noise machine on the table just inside the door, and the homemade jammer that was tucked away inside the table door. 

Nicki surveyed her work with a frustrated sigh. It was the best they could do, but it wasn’t much. The forcefield was underpowered, and only extended most of the length of the wall. It would deter someone from trying to enter through the main door, but it was hardly impenetrable. The jamming system was also homemade, based off plans Captain Aldis Hodge had recovered from his father’s private office prior to leaving the planet, and the white noise machine had been purchased at Bed Bath and Beyond—nothing was state-of-the-art. Meanwhile their enemy had near limitless resources both on and offworld and the combined backing of over 150 nations at last count. 

A quick mental nudge from Alona told Nicki they were ready to begin, so she closed the drawer and crossed the room to take her seat by Alona’s side, perched on the overstuffed arm of her chair. 

Now came the waiting game, the delicate dance... Who would speak first? One wrong move, and they could spook their guest, endangering him, them, and everyone else under their protection.

When a minute passed and the man still hadn’t spoken, Nicki squeezed Alona’s hand. 

“Thank you for agreeing to talk to us, and for staying here...” Alona started.

Nicki knew she was weighing each word carefully, reaching out telepathically and monitoring their guest to track his response. His mind was too guarded to glean very much, at least without _pushing_ in a way that would hurt him, exhaust Alona or Nicki, and destroy any trust they might build. Better to leave the gross invasions of personal privacy to the bad guys.

“How did you find out about us?” Alona chose at last.

The man shifted in his seat, but didn’t make eye contact or look up from his hands, which were twisting together in his lap. “Some friends mentioned it a while back, that this area was a good place t—” he broke off, “—a good place to get away.” He shrugged, “It was a while ago... back when—” he paused again, “I wasn’t sure you would still be here, but now seemed like a good time to give it a try.” 

Nicki could tell he was carefully editing his speech to ensure nothing he said was potentially incriminating. _He doesn’t know if he can trust us. Thinks we might have left and been replaced..._

 _Or that we’ve been captured, converted, and planted back here again to trap people trying to evade the system_ , Alona observed.

“You thought we’d closed?” Alona said out loud, feigning ignorance.

The man’s reaction was decisive and immediate. 

“I’m sorry. Thanks for inviting me back here and all, but I should probably go,” He was already on his feet and two steps to the door by the time he finished his sentence.

 _Something spooked him and scared him good._ He was projecting now, involuntarily, and Nicki knew the reason all too well. He was running scared, thinking like a trapped animal, and he thought the trap had just closed on him. It was a much stronger reaction than they’d expected. They’d misjudged, whoever this man was he wasn’t a curious Naiian looking for refuge; he was on the run. They’d almost had him, and now he was desperate to get away.

“Wait,” Nicki called out.

He froze, fear radiating from him in waves.

“You came here because you don’t believe the gifts you have, the little differences, are the result of a genetically engineered virus. You don’t believe your mind is a victim of bioterrorism. You’ve always been this way, and you don’t want to die, don’t want to let them turn you into something you’re not. So you came here to learn the truth, to find out if there’s another way,” Alona blurted, the man’s body relaxed and tensed again with every phrase.

“This is some kind of a trick; you’re trying to force me to incriminate myself!” he murmured, his voice gravelly rough and quiet.

“No,” Nicki said, shaking her head for emphasis. “No trick. People like us can recognize each other. We can teach you how, we can teach you so much.”

“People like us?” he asked, hesitant, as he turned away from the door.

“Naiians, our species,” Nicki answered.

“How do I know this isn’t a trap?”

“Because I’m Nicki Aycox, and she’s Alona Tal,” Nicki said pointing at each of them as she spoke.

Alona nodded in agreement.

The man’s eyes widened with recognition and shock. “You’re them—the, the hostages from the broadcast. They said you were like… like me. They said you were dead.”

“We’re not dead,” Alona answered, and you really can’t trust everything you hear on TV.”

“But, if we can’t trust each other, then who can we trust?” Nicki continued.

After that the intake went pretty smoothly. The talked him down, got him a safe place to stay—a room at the B&B to start—and a cover identity. Since the first purge had almost two years ago, Nicki and Alona had helped over five thousand Naiians stuck on Earth find safe harbor. Some, like this man, whose name was “Jim,” had settled into the underground community they’d set up around the B&B. Others they’d helped with medical attention—given drugs and prescriptions to mask their symptoms and evade tests at work or school. They had Jeff to thank for that—the human brother of one of their Naiian friends who had managed to escape in the first purge, Jeff was one of the few doctors left on Earth _not_ collaborating ORDA—the Offworld Research and Defense Agency, Earth’s secret planetary, military government. 

Nicki and Alona used contacts built through their legal careers to provide safe passage and a means of escape for those Naiians caught in hot spots. And together they scoured the globe using their mental gifts to seek out nanolumes, symbiotes, and other pieces of key technology left behind by the rogue Licinians who, 5,000 years ago, had engineered their species in secret as a last-ditch attempt to stop the Licinian government from committing genocide of the human race in a quest to add Earth to the Licinian’s raw materials’ reserves.

The irony was, the Naiians had stopped the Licinian invasion and saved Earth, only to have humanity turn on them and begin their own genocide. So, now Alona and Nicki lived in fear, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and hoping, one day, they would be able to make their escape.

Until then, they tried to save as many as they could. Hoping when the opportunity came there would be enough of them left to save, or fight back.

~~~

**February 2015—Auroran Diplomatic Mission to Orrellia**

_“Sir.”_

The voice cut through Jensen’s unconscious mind like a laser scalpel. It wasn’t a shout, nor a scream, but the urgency behind the word tore Jensen from his vague and murky dreams and snapped him back into conscious reality. He’d been dreaming something—comforting and familiar, yet so sad... A flicker of Misha’s smile, a lock of dark hair, the brush of fingertips along his spine in a loving caress... it faded by the time his eyes snapped open. A ghost of a memory. Gone. Never really there.

“Sir.”

Awareness flooded in, and Jensen snapped upright in bed. He could feel how important it was because the speaker was projecting, and the speaker was terrified.

And that was very bad, and very, very wrong because... because...

Jensen’s eyes darted around the room taking it all in before they settled on the young Lieutenant in front of him. Right. Diplomatic mission. He was alone in his room in the ambassadorial suites the Orellatai had provided for his delegation. Misha was long dead. He’d been charged with training and watching over a young Fropali diplomat in training—Ipani—who was now working as his assistant, and she was supposed to be asleep in the next room. And the lieutenant was a member of his security detail, so if the lieutenant was standing at the foot of his bed in the middle of the night, calling out to wake him up with that kind of fear in his mind, then things were very, very bad.

“Report,” Jensen ordered, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His body reacted on autopilot, already preparing to fight or run, or both, whatever was required. His mind reached out further taking in the presence of those around him. In the next room another member of the protection detail was rousing, her mind still fuzzy with sleep. Farther down the hall one team member was rousing another, and all of them, every mind—well, every mind he could touch, anyway—was filled with the same sense of panic, urgency, and dread.

“Apertures, sir,” the Lieutenant answered, “about five klicks west of the city.”

Jensen’s head snapped up, a question forming on his lips. 

“They’re not ours. They’re not Licinian either. Lifesign scans showed they’re human, or close to it.”

“ORDA,” Jensen realized, as he reached out farther still and made contact. His mind tried to connect with the almost-Naiian minds he found only to bounce off, the familiar sick, slick, slide and snap of a human mind dosed with enough artificial neurotransmitters to let it use a crude, human-made wormhole-making device. There were ten minds… no, twelve, drawing him in, luring him with their false familiarity. He pulled back into himself and shuddered, his hand moving reflexively to the symbiote, snugged tight against his skin in its pouch. Biofeedback from the connection flowed into his mind, grounding and reassuring him. Jensen could not afford to have a flashback, not now. Not even when the feel of those ORDA minds brought him back to when he was weak and dying of symbiote withdrawal, his body destroying itself, burning up from the inside. 

“There are twelve of them,” he said aloud. 

“Yes sir, and they’re coming this way. We don’t know how they knew where on this planet to look, let alone why they would ever come here. There’s no record of ORDA or anyone from Earth ever visiting this system before!” the young lieutenant said, unable to hide the surprise in his voice.

“Sir!” another voice half-shouted, as a young woman barged into the room, panting, after obviously having run a long distance. Her uniform was rumpled and twisted as if she had been suddenly awakened, pulled it on in haste, and then run a couple miles, which was probably actually what had happened. Her sleeve bore a second lieutenant’s insignia with a cross-stripe emblem that signified she was still a cadet on training rotation. She seemed impossibly young, especially when her eyes grew wide as she turned to take in the room before her, complete with Jensen, sitting on his bed clad in nothing but boxer shorts and a thin tank top, a good portion of his scars on display for all to see. But then her expression changed in a split-second, and she snapped to attention, executing a perfect salute, and collecting herself as if she’d always intended to run into Jensen’s bed chamber, shouting in the middle of the night. In that moment she seemed far too old and worldly wise for anyone of her chronological age to possibly be. 

“General, pardon me for the intrusion, but I bear urgent news.”

Jensen returned her salute and tried to suppress the flinch that came when she addressed him by his rank. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand _why_ the rest of the government had decided they all needed to keep their commissions, or even why they insisted on promoting him, Harris, Katie, and Jared to General. As a people, a society, a civilization in Aurora, they had limited resources, few officers with combat experience, and too delicate and precarious a position in galactic society to ever risk anyone’s advice, warnings, or hard-earned expertise would not be heeded because of a lack of rank or authority. No, the rank didn’t bother him at all. 

But _General_ , reminded him of the Generals, the ruling coalition of five who had originally overseen ORDA until the weight of lies and deceit and the fractures of a distrustful, xenophobic society had torn them apart, crumbling under their own weight. He thought of General Lehne and his betrayal. Of Ferris, a great leader whose disappearance and presumed murder would haunt Jensen to his grave. And it reminded him of Misha—if ever there was a person, a leader who should have earned the rank and title of General, it was Misha. But he too was gone. And all the title served to do was remind Jensen of everyone who wasn’t there. 

“I’m, so—” the second lieutenant started to say.

Jensen held up his hand in placation. “It’s okay. Just... You can call me ambassador, or even Jensen.” He cracked a smile and tried to inject some levity into the situation. “‘General’ makes me twitchy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” she acknowledged. Without missing a beat, she continued, “I have urgent information. Visual and telepathic confirmation. The incursion is human, ORDA uniforms, and they definitely know we’re here.”

The first lieutenant beside her startled and turned, “How—”

“Their weapons,” Jensen supplied.

“Yes sir,” the second lieutenant acknowledged. “They’re carrying plasma rifles and tear gas, all of them are, it’s not a standard load, unless that’s changed.” She looked at Jensen imploringly, after all, she would only know ORDA procedures and gear through second-hand information and training, since she had grown up on Aurora and had never been to Earth, let alone served in its most secret military organization. “They’re also headed directly for us.”

“How would they know?” the first lieutenant asked.

“The Jharr’at’chep ambassador has friends in ORDA,” Jensen answered, causing both lieutenants heads to snap towards him.

“Yes, we intercepted transmissions not long ago—we had just decoded them and determined their origin when the apertures opened,” the second lieutenant replied, “but how did you know?”

“Opinions, knowledge Ata’kahn let slip during negotiations. He had information he couldn’t have possibly known, opinions he wouldn’t have had if he hadn’t been talking to someone affiliated with ORDA.” Jensen ran a hand through his hair. “I knew he was trouble, I just didn’t think he’d be _this_ much trouble.” Jensen looked down at his feet, taking a moment to steel himself for what was to come. One breath. Two. Let it out.

When he snapped his head up to look at the young officers struggling to remember their names. “Lieutenants Allan and McLaughlin,” Jensen addressed them. “We need to mobilize our people and effect a strategic retreat. We can send our regrets to the Orellian government later and resume the talks with Ambassador Pretep at another time, if she’s still interested. Right now, we need to make sure no one falls into ORDA’s hands, and we escape without getting followed.” He pushed himself to his feet, careful, steadying himself, and began grabbing his supplies from the bedside table. Glancing at the chrono readout built into a small console on the neighboring wall, he realized he’d been asleep for a little under three hours. ORDA was probably hoping to catch them asleep, disoriented, disorganized in their beds. They had almost succeeded. He wouldn’t allow ORDA anything closer to victory. Right now his number one prerogative was protecting the safety of his people—human and Naiian alike—both here and on Aurora, and that meant making sure no one fell into enemy hands and no one from ORDA followed their esacape.

As he pulled on his protective vest, BDUs, socks, ankle holster, boots, thigh holster, and the rest of his gear, he regarded the two officers before him. By being the first to respond, they had demonstrated their capability and initiative, and—whether they realized it or not—volunteered themselves for some of the heaviest lifting in the battle to come. Running through the mental calculations, Jensen made up his mind and addressed them again. “Allan, rouse everyone in our group. Ipani, my Fropali apprentice, she’s next door—be sure to send her in here. If anything happens to her Ambassador Foalar will have my head,” he added, flinching at the thought. “Have everyone ready to rendezvous back here in three minutes.”

“Yes sir,” Allan acknowledged, snapping to attention and executing a crisp salute. 

“McLaughlin.”

“Yes sir,” she replied, her voice giving away none of the fear he could see in her face.

“That means you’re with me on strategy. Let’s talk options. Do we have friendly ships in system, or anywhere nearby?”

“Negative, sir.” She shook her head. “The Fropali ship _Peaceful Breeze_ was in-system until about an hour ago. They left on assignment, and I’m afraid we’re not privy to their scheduled route or destination.”

Jensen steeled himself and let out a sigh. “We’ll escape by wormhole then. Gather everyone in the common area. We’ll use one aperture to a class 3 world, then scatter.”

“Class three?” she asked, biting her lip.

“I know it’s not ideal for humans,” his mind shifted to Ipani, “or Fropali for that matter, but that’s kind of the point. Any sign of e-suits on the ORDA troops?”

“Negative, sir.”

“Then we’ll go. We won’t be on the class 3 long. We’ll divide into three teams and rendezvous at the nearest base, no one goes home until we’re sure we’re clear, and no one contacts home until we’re at the rendezvous.”

“Sounds perfectly logical sir,” she replied. “May I suggest we use the second closest base?”

Jensen cocked an eyebrow.

“Closest base is Pavilla Prime.”

“Training facility,” Jensen realized. “Second closest?” 

“On that Fallingari colony world, Fallii Vos.” 

“Sounds like a plan. Execute it please. I’ll be ready to go in, ninety seconds.”

~~~

Later that night, which was actually midafternoon local time, but they’d been squeezed into temporary quarters on the Auroran Defense Forces base without complaint, Foalar came to Jensen’s room.  
“How do you get used to it?”

Jensen looked up from the bed in his temporary quarters to find Ipani standing in the doorway, leaning in an almost human way against the jam. “Do what?” he asked, although he had a good idea of what she was talking about.

She stared back at him for a moment before clarifying, “Any of it? The hostility? The threats? The... consequences? The exhaustion? I... watched you today, and yesterday. You went from treaty negotiations to defending the dignity and right to self-determination of your people, and then acted as a mentor. You ate very little and the cuisine was unfamiliar to you. Your sleep was interrupted by an assassination attempt and incursion against the sovereignty of your nation, and you planned an escape that protected your hosts, your subordinates, and your homeworld, yet you had limited resources and time. You returned to one of your people’s strongholds only to be publically chastised by citizens and accused of... carrying a lighter burden than you expect of others.”

Jensen looked at her expectantly.

“It is my understanding that Naiians require a comparable amount of sleep to Fropali and a slightly greater calorie intake. You are member of an emotional and empathic species, and you personally are disabled. All of these facts seem very taxing, yet your opportunities to satisfy your needs are lacking.” She pursed her lips in a sort of Fropali frown. “How do you do it?”

Jensen sat there collecting his thoughts. But the answer was simple. “How could I not?”

Ipani took a hesitant step into the room. “I do not understand.” She looked at the small desk chair across from Jensen’s bed. 

He nodded at the chair and gestured for her to sit down. When she seemed comfortable and had turned his attention back to him Jensen continued. “What other choice do I have?

“But I sense you _enjoy_ your life, your life’s work, at least as much as you enjoy anything?” she asked.

Smiling despite himself, Jensen answered. “I do.” And it was true. Despite everything that had happened, there were some aspects of his new life that brought nothing but joy. Even when they tried his patience and sanity.


	3. The World That Was... (a Lie)

**April 2014—ORDA Mission Control, Texas, Earth**

“The latest reports, sir,” Lt. Mirakimi said, saluting and handing a tablet to the General for her review.

“The latest reports on patient 42 are on here?” she asked.

“Yes sir,” the lieutenant confirmed.

The General dismissed him with an absentminded salute, her focus consumed by the reports at hand.

Dr. Hanniger observed from her customary spot by the window, watching and waiting. Only this time her attention was fixed on the general rather than the too-isolated world outside. This base held none of the appeal of either ORDA headquarters—which she had been fortunate enough to visit once—or of the base in Colorado—which was still under construction a year after Col. Collins’ attack and would never again be secure enough to house the agency’s medical research since the Naiians were intimately familiar with its location. _Bugger all_ , she thought viciously. If she had to stay here much longer she was going to get violent. The great state of Texas held no appeal to her whatsoever, and the false cheeriness of the medical complex (a necessary ruse for the patients’ benefits, the psychologists and psychiatrists assured her) was driving her mad. Combine the two and she had no relief, no outlet. Thinking about it just made her angrier. _Why couldn’t we have one of these top-secret sites in Europe?_ she groused mentally. Dr. Hanniger knew the answer though—there were only so many places that were good for hiding bases of this size, especially above ground. Like it or not, America was one of them. ORDA had no desire to stick a base in the middle of Uzbekistan, and most suitable parts of the Brazilian rainforest were too remote (and too hot). Pretty much anywhere else, the locals would grow suspicious. Necessary or not she didn’t have to like it. At least, on days like today, General Bellman’s reactions proved far more entertaining and _intriguing_ than anything in the world outside the window.

She could see the moment General Bellman reached the end of the first report—Dr. Sheppard’s—and moved on to the second. The General’s expression soured and grew more confused as she read Dr. Forrest’s report, until, upon reaching the document’s end, she set the tablet down on her desk, steepled her fingers, and swiveled her chair around to face Dr. Hanniger. _Ah,_ apparently General Bellman was too impatient and was going to ask directly rather than reading Dr. Hanniger’s report. It wasn’t a bother; to the contrary, Dr. Hanniger had expected this. The General would undoubtedly receive the news much more _gracefully_ this way. Everyone’s eardrums would thank her.

“Dr. Hanniger, did I not instruct you to wean patient 42 off memory suppressants three months ago?” the General asked, peering over her fingers, her forehead drawn in disapproving concentration.

Shifting, Dr. Hanniger answered, “Yes, you did, and yes, I did. Dr. Forrest supervised the step-down process himself, and patient 42’s system has been clear of all memory altering drugs for over a month. Thirty-seven days, precisely.” She uncrossed her arms, and clasped her hands behind her back.

“Thirty-seven days clean, and he still hasn’t improved? Dr. Markinson’s report implies 42 has had no measurable recovery of his memories. He’s just as terrified and imbecilic as he was when we first brought him out of a coma!” Bellman’s fist and foot smacked hard into the nearest flat surface (a filing cabinet and the floor, respectively) in a rare visible display of frustration.

That assessment was being generous—Dr. Markinson hadn’t _implied_ but rather flat-out stated how bad 42’s memory situation was. Their patient was so terrified and disoriented and _loud_ they’d had to move him again, because he was upsetting the other patients and a good portion of the medical staff. He was now in a secured, sound-proofed room with round-the-clock, in-room medical supervision, armed guards outside the door, and a rotating remote surveillance team. Whenever they decided to revive him for good, they were going to have to be very _careful_ with him if they wanted him to be remotely functional. It would take a carefully constructed cover story, well-timed suggestions, and a whole lot of patience. Reeducating patient 42 wouldn’t be the quick fix or triumphant psychological victory many had hoped for. 

“I thought we had resolved this,” General Bellman bit out, her voice tight. “After Mirakimi’s cohort, the next two fared much better. Their memories were largely intact immediately following completion of treatment, and improved markedly in the following months, with memory loss and dysfunction primarily limited to the last few years.” She composed herself, her features softening, spine relaxing, and fist unclenching as she leaned back in her chair and glared up at Dr. Hanniger. “You told me you had all the _kinks_ in the process sorted out. By the sound of things patient 42 can’t remember his childhood, and has been reduced to a babbling idiot over fear of his surroundings.”

“We misunderstood the results—” Dr. Hanniger raised her right hand to stave off the General’s protest. “Please,” she requested, hoping she didn’t sound like she was begging. It would be much easier if she could just explain without the General losing her temper. She didn’t fear General Bellman’s dressing downs, but waiting through that would waste time.

General Bellman’s eyebrow twitched, but she didn’t speak.

“The information provided by our Licinian allies neither covered nor anticipated this outcome.” Dr. Hanniger paused, schooling her features to convey the precise blend of concerned and curious to avoid leading the General to believe she was casting aspersions on the Licinians without hard proof. “I do not know if this was an oversight, an omission, or if they simply did not know. We might have discovered it sooner if not for our prioritization in treating subjects. Because of our concerns about Naiians living unchecked in our midst, most of the subjects in our initial trials were Naiians by birth. Some of them were later exposed to REGM,” she used the acronym for rebel-engineered-genetic-material, “in addition, but none of them were ever human. The later groups consisted primarily of former humans who were exposed to REGM at some point in their lives and subsequently trained to use the resulting _talents_.”

Bellman frowned at Hanniger’s use of “Naiian,” but didn’t reprimand her. “Are you saying Markers’ alien genetics somehow impaired their memories or memory recovery?”

“No, sir,” Dr. Hanniger started, realizing as soon as the words left her mouth she had exceeded the General’s patience. The twitching eyebrow had escalated so now the General’s eyelid was twitching along with it, and a vein was visibly pulsing in her temple.

“Well, spit it out already,” Gen. Bellman gritted out.

“Naiians—” Hanniger paused when Gen. Bellman coughed, but continued, “are to some degree telepathic, this we know. They are also capable of surviving and _experiencing_ environmental conditions far outside the realm of human possibility, and they receive biofeedback through the wormholes they open.”

“They also have a biological codependence on their WMDs once they’re exposed to them,” Gen. Bellman added, her tone again unreadable.

“Yes sir. We know all those traits have to do with their unique biochemistry. What no one realized was they actually _experience_ the universe differently from humans. Their _senses_ are different, which means the sensory data their brains process is different, as are the memories created from their experiences,” Dr. Hanniger explained.

“And these differences are impairing their memories?” Bellman frowned.

Hanniger ignored the question and continued her explanation. “Imagine an animal with no vision—not just an animal that is blind, but one whose species has no visual sense, no visual cortex, no eyes. Then give that animal the memories of an animal with a sense of vision. The animal’s brain doesn’t understand the visual information attached to memories. It simply cannot process the input.” 

She waited to see if the General was following; satisfied, she continued. “Naiians memories are flooded with information tied to their unique senses. After we have treated a Naiian to make it _human_ that information remains. Patient 42 and the others are not recovering their memories because the information they can recall, understand, and process, is tied to data and sense impressions we humans cannot process. For the ex-humans only their memories since infection are affected. Prior to that they were human, so when their humanity is restored, their human memories return immediately. This foundation seems to help them latch on to the portions of post-infection memories they can interpret, so given time, their memory recovery is near complete. 

“But for those who were born Naiian all their episodic memories are flooded with Naiian sensory information. They have no human memories to form a foundation, so all memory recovery is hampered. General knowledge eventually comes back with coaxing, because it’s not tied to sensory data, but everything else is.”

“But most of those Markers didn’t _know_ there was anything alien about them until late in life, some of them have only been in the program for a few years—” General Bellman protested.

“Even without awareness, Naiians still have different senses. Those who were aware of their abilities longer or who discovered some of their unique traits prior to service with ORDA are certainly _more_ affected, as is the case with Patient 42. But all of them are going to have great difficulty retrieving, untangling, and processing memories of their previous life.”

General Bellman frowned. It only lasted a split-second before her features morphed into a moue of distaste and disgust she so often used when expressing her _displeasure_ with her subordinates, but it was there.

Dr. Hanniger had seen it. Deep down, this information troubled the General on a personal level. She had her theories of why, but for now, she filed the tidbit of information away for future reference. 

“I hope you’re not saying that every... born Marker!” Bellman spat the word, “will revert to an infantile state when treated without hope of recovery.” Her eyes snapped up and bored into each of the doctors in turn. “Tell me you have a solution!”

Forrest and the others cowered while the windows rattled and a glass vase came very close to shaking itself off the General’s desk and onto the floor. 

_So much for saving our eardrums._ Dr. Hannigar didn’t flinch. She just crossed her arms and turned back to stare out the window, leaning her shoulder against the curved frame. “I am saying nothing of the kind. However the solution will not come from the direction we expected. In time, we will undoubtedly perfect our techniques for helping subjects—” she didn’t correct her slip, “—untangle factual memories from sensory data. For those whose memories are... unobjectionable, we will be able to enlist—or if necessary—conscript family members to help us in indoctrinating and restoring the missing pieces. We will want to bring in memory specialists and enlist their help in mapping and recording subjects memories before treatment. I understand our Licinian allies have some experience in this area as do the... Pzvanhi?”

“P’hvanzi,” Dr. Forrest corrected quietly. 

“P’hvanzi,” Hanniger agreed. “They were allies of the old regime and we are still running a base and hospital on their homeworld. Until such time as the nature of our relationship with their government changes we should draw on them for assistance lest they believe we are usurpers, enemies, and find themselves inclined to side with the Naiians. With our allies’ help we gather memory data and filter it back into our newly human subjects when they are ready.

“Of course for those with... problematic memories... difficult identities... those subjects, like patient 42, we have an opportunity. Treatment renders subjects a near-blank slate. We have the opportunity to construct identities, values, philosophies, and yes, truths for them that suit our needs.” Dr. Hanniger paused and turned slowly to face her audience seeking out Bellman’s eye and holding it. “We don’t have to worry Col. Collins won’t see eye-to-eye or that he’ll have a change of heart and turn his back on our gift. We won’t have to worry about the charismatic leader returning to his cause, nor shall we fear he will reject our version of the truth. We can construct him. Mold him. Ensure the only truth he knows is what we feed him. We can paint him as the villain in his own life’s story. We could write Ackles out of his memory entirely or give Collins a wholly new identity.” She paused for effect, letting her words sink in. “Don’t you see the brilliance of it? This is our best case scenario. When we’re done, if we’re careful there will be no one left who remembers any other versions of the truth!”

“There are no other Truths!” Bellman protested.

Dr. Hanniger held up one hand placatingly. “You are of course correct, sir, I misspoke. I should have said we will eliminate the possibility of differing points of view. When we are done the whole world will see things our way.”

General Bellman crossed her own arms mirroring Dr. Hanniger’s position. Although the others remained they were all silent. They all seemed to understand the outcome depended on the war of wills waging before them. “What are you proposing?”

“Right away, we bring in allied memory experts. While they get up to speed studying our proposed next batch, we spend two more months with Collins. We work with him to recover his memories. We see what... undesirable recollections surface, and then we wipe him clean. Dose him again and throw in a mild dose of memory suppressants... enough to undo whatever progress he makes without causing permanent memory loss.”

“And then?”

“And then we bring him out of it like it’s the first time, and we... _build_ Col. Collins into the man we want him to be.”

“You’re proposing we make him a weapon,” General Bellman remarked. 

“Our weapon.”

Bellman seemed to consider Dr. Hanniger’s words for a moment then straightened, uncrossed her arms, turned on her heel and strode from the room. At the threshold she paused and said, “You’ll have your experts first thing in the morning. Licinian to start. I’ll broach the issue with the P’hvanzi at our next summit. You have two months and not a second more to get patient 42 ready.” She started to move again, taking two steps forward before she stopped again and turned. Her knuckles turning white where she gripped the door jamb. “And Doctor, when you’re done with him, he’d better be ready to take down the Enemy.”

“When I’m done with him he’ll hunt Ackles down and exact vengeance upon him with the fury of a thousand suns,” Hanniger promised. 

“Good. Oh, and Doctor, do see about having one of your minions in the CDC make nice with the press and explain while treatment if the 500,000 patients currently in holding is going to be delayed two months.”

“I’ll put someone right on that.”

Bellman nodded. “Now kindly remove yourselves from my office,” she added and walked away.

~~~

**June 2013—Aurora City, Aurora**

Chaos reigned. Too many people in too small a space. 

Jensen wanted to run, hide. Die. He didn’t care. He just wanted the pain to stop, the gaping wound in his chest to stop bleeding. Couldn’t anyone see? How was it possible he could feel this much pain and be perfectly alive? How could his body be numb, yet hurt so much? The wound formed by the broken bond with Misha had felt burned at first, now it was bleeding freely, his soul pouring out.

“Jensen.”

But the name didn’t register. 

“How is it you’ve been building this place for years, and you have no defenses?” someone was asking. Jensen didn’t know the voice. Couldn’t see who, because his mind wasn’t seeing. It was turned inward watching Misha’s last moments over and over again. Seeing what Misha must have seen through his own eyes. Feeling the connection snap shut. 

“We’re not defenseless!” said someone else, a woman with an accent that placed her as being a native of Miradoma… now Aurora.

“Not defenseless, huh?” That voice Jensen did know. It was Bates or Briars… one of the Majors from ORDA’s Paris base. He’d met the guy a few times before… well _before_ and since the Naiian and human refugees from Earth had poured out of the wormholes from the Fropali ships they’d used as stepping stones. They’d been corralled from one building to another for what felt like days, but was probably only hours, and were now gathered in some sort of meeting hall… or maybe it was a cafeteria or a conference room… Jensen wasn’t really paying attention, and now those who among them—both resident and refugee alike—were ostensibly leaders, had gathered and were talking about… Something that should be important to Jensen but just wasn’t. “Then was I imagining things when I heard your colleague over there say there was no planetary shield, no planetary weapons, no jamming field—no way to block a wormhole from Earth or a fleet of ships—”

“What fleet, Briarly?” Harris asked, sounding tired and a little brittle. “ORDA’s fleet isn’t that big. They rely primarily on wormholes—”

“Oh and you think they’re gonna keep relying on wormholes now that they’ve hunted us down? They don’t _trust_ us. But they do trust their Licinian friends, and they do have lots of ships.”

“Jensen.”

But Jensen was drifting again. He’d done it. He’d stayed strong. Gotten their people through—off Earth and to safety. Wasn’t he done? Couldn’t they just let him be? Couldn’t he just open a wormhole to—oblivion and step through? Hadn’t he earned a reward?

“What you don’t seem to understand, _Major_ ,” it was another local talking. “Is that we built this city, this complex, this _world_ in secret. It took fifteen years of planning and ten years of building. Squirrelling resources away, trading in secret, sneaking our people out here to keep it safe from ORDA. Because while you were out there running around the galaxy playing lapdog and guard dog for your ORDA masters, we saw the writing on the wall, and we prepared!”

There was a mixed outcry of cheers and jeers from around the room. 

The sound didn’t seem to echo, so either they were in a really small space… or there were so many people there they’d filled it. Jensen thought he could make out an arched ceiling made of some sort of wood about ten feet overhead, but he wasn’t sure. He was seeing Misha’s eyes. His smile. Hearing his laughter. Misha’s life was flashing behind Jensen’s eyes… _It wasn’t supposed to be this way._

“While that’s all well and good,” someone else from Earth was saying. They were wearing a police uniform from somewhere in the States. Jensen wasn’t sure if they were a human ally or a particularly lucky Naiian who’d gotten evaced before ORDA had started “treatment” in earnest— Jensen didn’t care, the details slipped away as soon as he noticed them.

“You bet we don’t have a goddamn jamming field. How broken and brainwashed are you people? We came here to be free, not to lock ourselves in boxes like those frigging humans want to—”

“Excuse me!?” 

“Humans from Earth.”

“Oh like that’s better!”

“I mean ORDA. And you all know that. We allow free travel around the planet. Our children, Naiian and human alike, grew up with wormholes. They grew up with symbiotes. This is how we live. So I’m sorry if you feel insecure, but we’re not going to give up our way of life for you! It’s enough that we opened our home, our sanctuary. If anything we should be the ones furious with you for leading ORDA to our doorstep.”

“We didn’t lead anyone here.” That was Genevieve talking.

In the background it sounded like someone had thrown something and there was a scuffle—maybe a fistfight or a brawl, or just people shoving around (Jensen didn’t care)—going on in the background. Someone cried out. Another person grunted. 

“Stop. It! We’re not animals. None of us. We’re all just afraid. And tired. And we’ve all been uprooted. _All of us_ , and now we’re here, and we have an opportunity and a responsibility to build a government—”

Someone groaned in protest.

“—a world, a community in which we can survive. Thrive. But we are in a precarious position. We’ve got—” the speaker paused as if checking something.

“One point two three,” another voice muttered softly. And Jensen knew that voice. It was Emma Roberts… Lieutenant, or Captain, or whatever her rank was now… if that even mattered, so that meant the other speaker was…

Major, no Lt. Colonel, Daneel Harris, “One point two three million people, just over that actually, as of our last census. We’re receiving stragglers—refugees from other Earth colonies, a few more Naiians in ORDA who managed to break away from missions before getting caught up in the purge, but that’s just a handful. For now, we’re all we’ve got. That’s a lot of people with not a lot of trade and just the resources we’ve got here, and let’s not forget that about one million of us are Naiian, and back on Earth we’re being hunted down, rounded up in concentration camps and experimented on as we speak. Some of us have disappeared. Some have been—converted to human, a process we still don’t understand. Some have been tortured. Others died of symbiote withdrawal, and still others,” her voice grew very solemn and quiet, “gave their lives in the battle that paved the way for our escape.”

Jensen could tell people were looking at him. He was a telepath, after all, as were easily 75% of the people in the room, space, whatever it was. He could _feel_ their focus shift to him. But he couldn’t care. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t think. There was a bright light above him, too bright… could it be the light at the end of the tunnel? Was it heaven? He didn’t believe in an afterlife, but right now, he’d accept just about anything, because he was pretty sure his life had fallen into hell. 

The bright light alternated with dark spots, as if his vision was selectively shutting off. Everything sounded distant. Voices from far away filtering down the well, getting lost in the water. Its ripples were reaching out in all directions, changing the world around him. _And you can never step in the same stream twice, and it’s a long way down to the bottom of the waterfall…_ Jensen tried to care. 

“But that means there are at least one hundred thousand Naiians left on Earth, many of them in hiding. And there are human friends and family members we’ve left behind. And right now, we have to figure out a way to keep this place going. To make Aurora the sanctuary it was designed to be or we’re not going to make it. We have to _fight_ for ourselves, and for everyone we’ve left behind,” Harris paused, and Jensen could tell she was turning to the locals, seeking out something to say. “All the lives we uprooted.”

“—ensen. Jensen, come on, please listen to me.”

But the light was so bright, even around the black spots. He didn’t want to shift his attention. The wound inside where his bond to Misha had been, it was numbing now, going cold, like blood gone cold and tachy.

“We’ve got two ships, alright lady. Two. They’re big, they’re state of the art, and most importantly, ORDA doesn’t _know_ we have them, because we used our own offworld alliances and our production facilities in Aurora City to build them under ORDA’s noses. So that’s what’s gonna defend you, now sit down, and shut up.”

“That’s a Colonel you’re talking to,” Jared protested.

“Lieutenant Colonel,” Harris corrected, almost under her breath.

“You know what? I don’t give a flying fuck. We were supposed to get the heroes—”

“She _is_ a hero!” Roberts retorted.

“I’m talking about the legends. The folks we knew were always coming here one way or another. The ones they’d never let leave the program, who would never be _safe_ to retire on Earth—Ferris, Morgan, Peleggi, _Collins_. Only this way we would have gotten them alive and whole rather than shattered and fractured having outlived their usefulness in the field as far as ORDA was concerned. And what do we get instead? Ferris missing. Peleggi presumed dead. Morgan, gone two years. Collins? Died to facilitate the escape. So, excuse me if I’m a little underwhelmed.”

Whoever that speaker was, Jensen wanted to clock him and punch him in the balls, no the gut, no the balls. Those people had been Jensen’s friends. Misha’s mentors. And Misha… Misha was gone.

“Excuse me,” that was Katie, who sounded really distracted, and very close by, and her voice was irritated enough that Jensen had to listen. “But while you may not have heard of our famed accolades, every single one of us fought and bled for our freedom.”

“Not to mention it’s Dr. Cassidy and Major Ackles over there you should be thanking. They’re the ones who saved Earth,” Genevieve interjected.

“Fat lot of good that did, eh, Earth’s saved, but none of you lot can go home. And none of us can even go back for a visit, so why don’t you sit down and shut up, you human bitch?”

More screaming and yelling. A few choice insults thrown around by people Jensen was guessing were Aurora “natives,” for lack of a better word, who happened to be human.

“Yeah, and if they hadn’t saved Earth, ORDA would have evaced everyone they could here,” that was Jared. 

“Who are you? What are you talking about? They would have gone to M’Nell. The P’hvanzi love ORDA’s ass.”

“Oh, excuse me, let me introduce Major Padalecki. He almost died procuring the jamming technology, which let us hold off the Licinian attack long enough for Katie and Jensen to finish the job,” Harris snapped. “And he’s right. ORDA would come here.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s their most defensible base.”

“Then why aren’t they here already? You say you weren’t followed, but if this is their retreat of last resort, then why aren’t they knocking down our door?”

“Would you even _know_ if they were knocking down your door if you don’t have a tracking system—” Briarly started up again.

“We track wormhole activity incoming from other planets, thank you. We just don’t follow everyone around like the CIA or whatever.”

“NSA,” someone from Earth commented.

“Well, actually like ORDA, since they’re the ones with the wormhole tracking program, which saved Jensen’s life, and by extension, the rest of us,” Jared continued.

“Jensen?” Katie asked. She was the one who had been calling out his name all along. He wanted to listen to her, to look at her, but he was having trouble thinking, trouble moving. He was standing on his right foot, but he couldn’t feel it, and that was bad, because his right leg was his good leg, and… had he broken it? The events of his final moments on Earth… of Misha’s final moments were still a blur. “Jensen! Come on, Jensen, listen to me.”

He tried to turn, to see her, but the second he pulled his eyes off the dancing array of bright light and dark spots that graced the ceiling, he realized he couldn’t feel his legs or anything below the bottom of his shoulder blades. “Katie?” he asked, and then he was falling.

~~~

“I thought you triaged him on the shuttle?” Harris asked.

“I did; we thought this was a bullet wound. I guess they’ve been treating their bullets,” Katie answered, out of breath.

Jensen was lying down now, on something hard, but not. Jackets laid down on the floor maybe? He still couldn’t feel anything, but now his head was aching, and there were still too many people around. Their minds were too agitated, laced with concern. Frantic and frustrated and they were all way too close.

“Treating their bullets with what?” Genevieve asked.

“Posiphase, what else?” Katie snapped back. “Goddamnit, I need a glucose drip, clotting agent, and at least three units of blood, and some damn neurogon to try to undo _some_ of the damage, or at least stop it from getting worse.”

“Will that work?” Jared asked. “He was shot, what, twelve hours ago.”

“He’s gone longer without treatment before,” Katie pointed out. 

—And, oh, of _course_ Jared wouldn’t know that seeing as he’d been in a coma on M’Nell at the time, after Kane had shot him.

“Then again, the last time he was treated with it was after the final battle of the Licinian war,” Katie paused, radiating uncertainty. “That was before we knew how much he would adapt and use procogitol… I don’t know what role the neurogon played in it, if any. Still, if there’s any chance, I’d like to help preserve any sensation we can. He’s lost so much already.”

“Do you have to do this in here?” one of the annoying Aurorans who’d been yelling before was asking.

“Back. Off,” Genevieve said, her voice almost a growl.

Jensen was pretty sure the dude must have been hovering.

“I can’t move him, so you’re just going to have to deal. This is reality people. This is what we’re fighting,” Katie announced.

“Oh, and what? We’re supposed to listen to you now?”

“Dr. Cassidy has advanced the understanding of Naiian gen—” Roberts tried.

“I don’t care what she’s done to advance medicine. We’re all grateful, the point is, her presence is offensive to some of us. Do you know _why_ Naiian medicine was in the dark ages for so long? Because any of us who actually were doctors and who knew what we were, ORDA wouldn’t let us practice medicine or research. They had better places for us. Translating, acting as cannon fodder, putting us in positions where we were forced to weight Naiian lives against human lives and turning us into monsters. She’s only as good as she is because she _made_ herself one of us.”

“So?” Roberts challenged, but Jensen never got to hear the end of that conversation, because at the same moment, a familiar presence brushed up against his mind. Not Misha, of course, or anyone he knew that well, but someone he’d met before, someone who—

“Dr. Cassidy, may I approach?” It was _Tony’s_ voice. The man whose dream had built Aurora. Who had lived a life in the program and outlived his human wife. 

“Of course, D—Dr. Mason,” Katie half stammered.

“It’s just Tony, please,” he answered. “I heard about Misha. I am so sorry for your loss, for all our loss, Colonel Collins was a great man.”

Tony’s voice sounded louder, and Jensen realized he was projecting it for all to hear. The room quieted some, although the general hum of semi-hushed whispers rumbled on in the background.

“Ah, here are the medics with the supplies you requested. I took the liberty of adding psytalodol to the supplies... no, I wouldn’t expect you to be familiar with it, it’s a bit of a black market product here. Something we’ve known about and known we need for years, but had to keep out of ORDA’s clutches, lest they realize just how extensive our telepathy really is.”

Jensen could feel Katie hesitating. He wanted to ask what was wrong, but he was still drifting on the edge of consciousness, unable to speak or open his eyes.

“It’s a telepathic mood stabilizer. It… helps take the edge off without blocking or shutting down transmission of any neurotransmitters. I know Jensen and Misha shared a very deep bond, and with everything else Jensen is struggling with…”

“Of course,” Katie answered.

“If I may,” Tony continued. “I’d like to stay with him. I know a few techniques to use the combination of touch and shared mental space to ease psychogenic shock.

Warm hands pressed against the sides of Jensen’s head. He struggled for a moment, not liking the feeling of being held down.

“Relax, Jensen, I won’t hurt you,” Tony murmured.

 _Listen to him_ , Misha’s voice insisted from the back of Jensen’s mind. So, Jensen complied. And the world went dark again.

~~~

“—that can serve as a training academy until something more permanent is found,” a woman’s voice was saying when Jensen drifted back to consciousness.

He was sitting up, well propped up really, rather than on the floor. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times, getting them to take in the room properly for the first time. The room was large with a high arched ceiling. He could see now that it was some sort of cafeteria or dining hall, maybe a restaurant, because there was food service equipment along one wall, and tables and chairs throughout much of the space, although those had been rearranged and pushed to the side in some places. Large, round lamps hung at regular intervals across and along the ceiling, but they were dim now, in favor of the natural violet-hued light that was now streaming in through the bank of windows that wrapped around two sides of the room. Jensen could just see the sun peeking over the lush, green trees of the closest mountain… which meant the room, wherever it was, was pretty high up in one of the buildings built into Aurora’s mountainsides. 

Some of the chairs had been pulled together to form a sort of hospital bed/couch, which had been stacked with coats, a blanket, and a few pillows from somewhere, and used to prop Jensen up. He was lying slightly on his left side, to relieve pressure from the posiphase-laced bullet wound on his right flank. His ankle had been re-splinted, and was elevated, while his entire left side was padded with varying thicknesses of coats and blankets, in what he assumed was an attempt to avoid creating pressure points. He still couldn’t feel anything below his shoulder blades, aside from a numb ache on his right side, above the latest wound, but it was a familiar numbness, one he’d experienced before, when his body had overloaded, and he’d burned though both the glucose in his bloodstream and the procogitol that bridged the gaps in his spinal cord, gifting him with sensation and movement he wouldn’t otherwise have.

His procogitol clearly wasn’t tapped out, because he could still fell the press of minds around him… it just seemed his body was prioritizing telepathy over sensation and movement. _Probably because I need to stay put to heal_ , he mused. His fingers reached reflexively 

“Training academy’s not gonna do us much good if ORDA can just breeze in here any old time,” someone complained.

“I know how to solve our defense problem,” Jensen blurted, surprising himself.

All eyes turned towards him accompanied by a few gasps.

“Who’s he?” someone asked.

“Ackles. One of the savior—”

“Shut up!”

“He was Collins’ husband.”

“Oh great, just what we need, someone who thinks close association with someone substitutes for experience.”

“Major Jensen Ackles is an accomplished attorney, diplomat, and combat veteran who, along with Dr. Cassidy, who you so thoughtfully dismissed earlier he not only stopped the Licinian plot on Earth, but developed much of the technology ORDA now uses—and also figured out ways to _beat_ that technology,” Tony announced calmly. 

Everyone shut up.

“So he’s the asshole we have to blame for the damn tracking system.”

“Oh shut, up, or did you miss the part where he was just widowed, and _shot_.”

“Is he even well enough—”

“Jensen’s also a bit of a medical marvel, as you may have figured out, and if he says he has a solution, I suggest we all listen,” Tony added, cutting off the naysayers.

Acutely aware of a hundred or more pairs of eyes all zeroed in on him, Jensen swallowed and began talking. “Line of sight,” he said, wishing he could sit up, but knowing by the way Katie was fiddling with her hands, he was still in a bad place medically speaking, and there would be no moving without her say so.

“Excuse me?” one of the more civil-sounding Aurorans asked. “But we’re talking about space. Three dimensions and our planet’s a great big globe that ORDA can approach from anywhere it damn well pleases.”

“True, except ORDA _won’t_ approach us from just anywhere,” he paused to think wishing he could lean on Misha for an answer, and being struck with the constant reminder Misha wasn’t there, would never _be_ there again. _But he would want me to keep going…_ “Have any of you ever used a WMD—one of the wormhole devices ORDA uses?”

A few people nodded, and only a few of them from Aurora. The rest shook their heads.

“Well, ORDA tried to copy our symbiotes, but they couldn’t set up a full neural interface. So they built buttons, dials, and settings into their hardware. What that means is the more complicated wormhole or jump or path you want to take, the more _work_ it takes. Dial in just a little bit off from where you want to go, and you might wind up way off course. Possibly even on another planet or a nearby moon. The easiest thing to do, is open up a ‘default’ wormhole. And that’s line of sight, or as close to it, to the nearest habitable planet or planetoid. What this means is if two people open defaults on opposite sides of a planet, their wormholes will have two different destinations. And if you want to move a lot of people through a small number of wormholes and have them all wind up in more or less the same spot, you will use defaults, or as close to them as practicable.

“Now as for ORDA, well, lucky us, we’re about as far from Earth as you can get, and still be in the known part of our galaxy. ORDA picked Miradoma for a base because it was isolated, a point of retreat from the rest of their territory. There were downsides—it’s a long shot, Earth doesn’t have many allies out here, and there’s a whole lot of nothing around the system. But on the upside, your most likely wormholes are going to be coming in to the far side of the planet, near the abandoned Miradoma base. Because that’s the point closest to ORDA by line of site,” Jensen explained.

“What if they just jump to an ally, or fly somewhere and then open an aperture?” the calm woman asked again.

“We’re far enough out that coming from allied planets isn’t that likely to change the trajectory. Not based on our position in the galaxy,” Jensen shrugged one shoulder, regretting it instantly, when pain flared in his upper back, but he pushed it down, and focused on answering the question. “I can’t speak to what would happen if they came by ship, it’s possible they could fly far enough that the trajectory would be all different, but remember they don’t know we’re _here_ , on this side of the planet, at this latitude… so they have no reason to seek us out. If they wind up here, it would be by chance.

“So, we take a ship, we only need one, and we park it in geosynchronous orbit over the old base. Whatever incoming wormhole tracking you have that you’re comfortable with, you turn it on. It’s possible the ship will intercept some wormholes, while at the very least, the ship’ll have weapons and a capacity to search for wormholes and life signs, and can fire on any unwanted intruders.”

“But what if they use a symbiote? Couldn’t they send a scout?”

“It’s possible,” Katie offered, “but they’re not going to use symbiotes.”

Jensen shook his head. “There may still be a few in use, but I don’t expect it to last long. I doubt the drugs they’re giving humans can actually create or sustain the neurological connection necessary to use a symbiote and well… there’s the whole symbiote withdrawal thing. They’re not going to risk that. Besides, if they knew where _here_ is, they’d already be here.”

“But how could they forget a planet? Especially one that housed such a large base until three weeks ago?” Roberts asked, skeptically.

“They killed or memory wiped everyone who knew. Probably didn’t realize what they were doing until it was too late,” Jensen explained.

And so the plan was born. Always have one ship in orbit, ready, prepared, waiting for the attack that might never come, or might spell the end of everything they’d built. But most importantly, that one ship opened the other to explore and travel, to give them options…

And as Jensen was learning, options were few and far between.

~~~

**October 2013—Southern Maine**

“Did you hear about the new bill they introduced in Congress?” Toria asked, leaning over the table her tone conspiratorial.

“Is that the one that requires blood tests of all state employees and makes it grounds for dismissal if you test positive?” Daniel asked, perking up at the topic. 

“Yeah, I heard about that, didn’t they introduce another bill in the House about testing in schools—something about adding it to Kindergarten readiness testing, and testing teachers and school personnel? The teachers’ union is up in arms about the invasion of privacy or something,” Gage gossiped. Her tone was light and her whisper excited, but as Nikki overheard her she was struck with the impression the girl—you woman—was hiding something.

“Yeah,” Daniel interjected. “I heard about that.” He looked around cautiously either not seeing Nikki was in earshot or not registering her as a threat. “Word is factions on both sides of the aisle are talking about expelling or banning kids who test positive, saying they’re a public health threat.”

“But they’re kids,” Gage protested, sounding confused. “I mean the government’s pretty sure it’s a sexually transmitted disease, right? So, how would little kids have it?”

“Well it’s like HIV, right? If it’s sexually transmitted it could get passed on in child birth or you could get it through a blood transfusion, or something, right? So, anyone could have it. But that’s not my point.” Daniel waved his hands as if to wipe away the conversation. “Thing is everyone’s afraid of how people will react because of the kid angle, right? Doesn’t matter how scary the disease is if you’re talking about singling out little kids. So, I heard the Senate has toyed with slipping that part into a rider and attaching it to some totally unrelated bill.”

“Like what?” Gage asked.

“I don’t know. I don’ think they’ve decided yet. But something people would have a hard time voting against like the budget or school lunch finding or something. And the kicker...” He looked around again, nervously. “I heard the governor promised to sign it.”

“Really?” Gage asked. 

Daniel nodded. 

Toria, who had been listening in respectful silence since they interrupted her, chose that moment to scoff. When Daniel and Gage looked at her in confusion, she spoke up. “I think it’s fabulous and all that you’re so up on state politics and all, but I was talking about _Congress_ , not the legislature. You know, in DC.”

“There’s a bill there too?” Gage asked. “I thought the worst w—” she broke off. 

Daniel shot her a warning glance. Nikki didn’t think anyone else saw.

The kids were all in their late teens, staying at the B&B Nicki and Alona had opened since moving to Maine in secret at the end of what was now being called the First Purge... The kids were traveling together, visiting colleges and doing some sightseeing on their Fall break. The B&B had only been open for two weeks, and it seemed that everywhere they turned these days, ORDA was extending their reach a little farther. Squeezing a little harder. History knew the next steps in the progression. First came bans and restrictions. Then they corralled people in ghettos. Then came the camps. And then... death.

“They know,” Alona whispered coming up beside her. “They know what they are, and they know it’s wrong, and we have to—”

Nicki squeezed her hand. “I know. I know. We can’t just hide...” 

“What are you thinking?” 

“Make this place a safe haven? A refuge? Work like the Underground Railroad and take in refugees... I’ve got some contacts,” Nicki said. “People who worked in human smuggling—the kind to get people out of abusive relationships with mob bosses, not the sex slave kind of trafficking,” she added. ”If we don’t do something kids like Daniel over there.... his supposed friends are going to turn him in. He’ll be lost.”

“Okay,” Alona murmured, then stronger, “Okay. We will make this work. We didn’t stay behind to wait and hide. We’re going to stand and fight.”

~~~

**June 2014—ORDA Medical Complex, Texas, Earth**

As an amnesiac patient slowly recovering from a near-death experience, almost a year in a coma, and a brain chemistry–altering virus that had swept the globe in the largest pandemic of the 21st Century, Misha (last name still fuzzy) should probably been grateful his doctors were letting him out and about. Giving him an opportunity to socialize, develop ties with other patients, it was a sign of trust, especially since Misha and all the others like him had endangered national security, threatened to topple governments, and gotten innocent people killed while they’d been infected.

Instead he was going to see Agam, co-patient and resident conspiracy theorist. Why he was seeking out _her_ of all people, he wasn’t sure, but he found her curiosity and skepticism… compelling.

The knock was more confident than he felt, but Misha still doubted he’d actually get a response. He resisted the urge to glance side to side. Somehow he knew if he looked like he was worried whether anyone was watching him he was more likely to attract attention than just by being there. Maybe it was a trap, maybe they were trying to lure him into trouble… There was a legal term for that—entrapment—he didn’t want to think about why he was so familiar with that either. 

But that would have to mean they—and wasn’t it bad enough he was already thinking about a nebulous, unspecific, all-powerful, _they_. Jesus Christ, he was already sounding like a conspiracy theorist. There was a point there—for _anyone_ to have a reason to entrap him or try to lure him into some sort of deviant behavior, someone would have to have a something to hide. So either _Agam_ was paranoid (and perhaps a bit full of shit) or there was merit to the story she was peddling, and he really did have something to fear. Or—maybe—there really were sympathizers who were trying to corrupt them, lure them into something.

The door lurched open, leaving Misha with his hand raised, knuckles poised mid-knock, the movement so sudden it created a small gust of air that felt like a slap in the face.

“What do _you_ want?” Agam was glaring at him, her body positioned defensively behind the door, just her head and right hand peering around it. Like she might slam it in his face with the slightest provocation.

“I didn’t turn you in.” That wasn’t what he had intended to say, but it was the truth, and it was the first thing out of his mouth.

“Yeah, I know.” She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it; that was a move I totally didn’t expect.” She looked at the floor and muttered something to herself that Misha could have sworn was, “Guess it’s too much to warn a girl,” but that didn’t seem to make sense. Snapping her head up to glower at him again, she asked, “So, you here to threaten me or apologize or gloat, then?” The door was only open a fraction of a meter, and her head was filling most of that space. Misha couldn’t see inside, and she definitely wasn’t inviting him.

 _Probably better that way_ , he admitted to himself. There would be cameras inside and probably sound recording devices, and even if he wasn’t sure what to think—what he believed—he knew he didn’t want to have this conversation anywhere it would be easily intercepted. Still, that meant no lingering suspiciously (or awkwardly), in the hallway, so better to just man up and get it over with. If he’d scared her off, maybe that was for the best, if not…

“I was thinking we got off on the wrong foot…” Misha hedged, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his scrub pants, feeling for all the world as awkward as he had the first time he asked a guy on a date, which, for the record, he was greatly relieved that he could actually remember that now. It was ridiculous; the situations were nothing alike, and yet, he could feel the red, prickling heat creeping up his spine, across his chest, and up his neck to his face. Gulping, he continued, “I was thinking since we’re both cleared for more activity now and we clearly both have trouble sleeping, you might like to accompany me on a walk through the gardens—”

With another exaggerated eye roll, Agam took a step back and started to close her door.

“Just wait, give me a second, please? I’m trying to apologize here.” He sidestepped and managed to catch her eye. He needed to get the message across to her about why he wanted to talk out there, but how—out of the corner of his eye, he saw a reflection. Nothing big, just a tiny glint, but it was like puzzle pieces fitting together, or the tumblers of a lock lining up and clicking open. _Cameras in the ceiling… Audio surveillance, recording devices._ Out of reflex he held her gaze and gave a meaningful glance upward and over her shoulder in the direction of the hidden surveillance equipment. 

To his surprise, she froze, her entire body language changing. Inching forward and looking at him with far less hostility. “Okay, you’ve got a second.” He could see from the curiosity in her eyes he had earned far more.

“I know we’re both going through a lot, especially with our memories being so—swiss-cheesed. Who knows how long we’re going to be in recovery. Chances are we’re going to be spending a lot of time in here together, and there aren’t that many other patients in the same phase. It seems like a waste to let one bad first impression isolate us when we could be helping each other, lending support…” Misha floundered giving another meaningful glance he hoped would convey he couldn’t explain the real reason he wanted to talk to her.

“Are you saying you wanna be my friend?” she asked with only a hint of sarcasm. 

“Something like that. But—you know, a walk, a change of scenery—I heard it’s supposed to be a clear night. The stars will be out. It’s warm, flowers are in bloom. Seems like the garden would be a good change of scenery, give us a fresh start, and a little exercise—”

“Might help us sleep?” She asked, her expression finally shifting from contempt to something that might have passed for a faint smile.

“Yeah.” Misha agreed, nodding. He smiled more out of relief than anything else.

“Okay.” She nodded. “Let me get my robe, and I’ll join you.” She stepped back only to close the door.

Misha stood there stunned, feeling like a fool. He’d _thought_ he’d been getting somewhere with her. She’d seemed receptive. Maybe he was being crazy. Maybe _she_ was crazy and he was better off letting it go, keeping his questions to himself, or just dismissing them. After all, he hadn’t really _had_ those doubts until she planted them… But it wasn’t really true. He’d started to get that _feeling_ the one he couldn’t quite identify, an ache somewhere deep inside that shouldn’t exist, but did, long before he’d first seen Agam walking in the halls, let alone talked to her.

The door opened suddenly, and he was startled from his nervous musings, jumping a little, just to come face to face with Agam, who was pulling on her hospital-issue fuzzy blue bathrobe.

“Whoa, you’re more skittish than I thought. Trust a girl, will ya. It’s late, maybe a little cold out. I just wanted the robe—”

“Sorry, I just… We really did get off on the wrong foot, and I thought maybe you just said you’d come to get me to leave you alone.” Misha flushed more, fidgeting and rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess that doesn’t make much sense.”

“I forgive you,” she said pulling the door shut behind her, “now, how ‘bout this walk you promised me?”

~~~

“So, what made you change your mind?” Agam asked when they were outside and far from the complex, wandering along one of the gently twisting stone pathways that wended its way along an artificial stream. They were far from any buildings, and the nearest trees were a good 10 meters away. It was just them and the night, and the most alone Misha had been since he first began to surface into consciousness almost six months ago. It was quiet, yet more alive than the complex ever felt even during the busiest hours of the day.

“I’m not sure that I have,” Misha added honestly, adding “changed my mind,” in response to Agam’s choked-off gasp. He shot her a wary glance wondering if he should have reconsidered his decision to broach the topic in more detail.

“But you’re talking to me, and you didn’t turn me in, so why don’t you tell me what _is_ going on,” she suggested, staring straight ahead, almost as if she was ignoring him. He could feel her growing more distant, more closed off than she had been since she opened the door to his knock.

“I started thinking. Really thinking. I listened to what you said, tried being open-minded, like you suggested…” he glanced at her, checking for a response.

“And?” She didn’t look at him, but cocked her head to one side, expectantly.

“And…” he continued, sighing, “I realized I had— _have_ a lot of unanswered questions. A lot of what the doctors told me just doesn’t add up.” He shrugged, pausing by one of the garden’s artificial ponds and staring into its depths. The pond was lined with fine, rounded pebbles sprinkled generously with green, blue, and gold sea glass. Several large carp with frilly fins and aesthetically pleasing patterns of gold, red, black, and coral-colored scales swam in its shallow depths, occasionally surfacing, their outlines just visible in the moonlight. He wondered what other hidden secrets the pond might hold. Were _they_ listening, even here, even now? When he spoke again, his voice was raised just above a whisper so only Agam, standing beside him, could hear. “I’m not sure what it means. I don’t know if the calculus means you’re right and everything you’ve told me is true, but I know what the doctors have told me can’t be the truth, at least not all of it.” He snuck a glance at her out of the corner of his eye.

“She appeared to be focusing intensely, almost mesmerized by the pond, but when she reached out and took his hand, he knew she was listening. “Thank you,” she said, squeezing, her words almost lost in the wind. “I’m not asking you to believe me, take my words at face value. I just—I need you to wake up and figure out for yourself.”

“We, we should move, keep walking,” he suggested, trying his damnedest not to sound too nervous or insistent. A nervous flutter made his stomach flip. It was one of those sensations that always felt so familiar, but he didn’t know why. 

He needn’t have worried about how he sounded because Agam started up the path again without question, leading them farther from the complex and deeper into the broad, open expanse of landscaped gardens.

Still, he felt the need to explain. “I know there are cameras and microphones recording everything we say and do inside. I’m not sure how I know or why, except I recognize the signs everywhere, and in my gut, I know it doesn’t surprise me. Even if I don’t ultimately believe you or agree with what you’ve told me, somehow I _know_ it’s not safe to talk in there, not about our questions and doubts. Out here,” he shuddered, “I’m not _sure_ it’s safe, but I know it’s _more_ secure. It’s a calculated risk. I don’t know how I know or if I’m right, but I _feel_ like I must be. I don’t think the paths are bugged.” He shot a glance a smile at Agam, “The ponds, benches, and trees? Those, I’m not so sure about.” There was a joke in there. Something to do with the trees having ears, only it wasn’t him who should be making the joke. Someone else should be here with him. That unknown loss was acute and painful, and his smile faltered. Like so many other memories the impression floated and fluttered half-formed, half-seen like a ghost in the back of his mind. Would those memories ever redevelop, fully form? Or would he be stuck this way forever with a constant sense the truth was right around the corner, but always just out of reach?

“How about the bridges?” She asked as they approached one of the places the path crossed the winding stream.

It could have been a joke, but before he could think of a playful response the real answer played through his mind like a hi-def video on fast-forward. He could see every aspect of the design and technical specifications of the bridges in the garden. Schematics, construction, and structural drawings flashed through his mind. He knew where the “security features” would be hidden and if he thought about it he was pretty sure he knew several ways around them—ways to exploit their weaknesses. At either end of each bridge, motion activated cameras would be tripped when someone walked between the two perfectly parallel wooden railings. Once the camera activated, it would record until the individual tripped the sensor on the other side. Microphones and receivers would be hidden along the undersides of the broad ledges that topped the railings. Pressure-sensitive plates hidden in the bridge walkway would ensure audio recording continued whenever anyone was present on the bridge regardless of whether other pedestrians entered and exited in the meantime. “The bridges?” His voice squeaked and he shuddered at the pictures his mind painted. “No, the bridges are definitely bugged.”

“You’re sure about that,” Agam observed. “Okay, well, we’re definitely not talking on a bridge then.” She turned them onto an adjoining path that veered away from the stream.

“Why—why do you just believe me, no questions asked?” Misha wondered. “I mean, you—you claim to remember things, but my memory’s as holey as Swiss cheese. For all you know this is just a paranoid delusion.”

Agam just shook her head. “Not a delusion. It looks like your memory is finally coming back, Colonel. And I’m pretty sure you know more about what shit they could potentially throw at us than anyone else left alive on this planet, so if you say the bridges are bugged, then the bridges are bugged.” There was sense of irony or teasing in her voice. She was deadly serious.

Once again, Misha found himself getting defensive and wondering what she could possibly mean. “Wait, did you call me Colonel?” he asked, playing back her statement in his mind.

“Uh, yeah…”

“Because I’m not—”

“You most definitely are, or were and should be again if the universe ever goes back to making any sense. What the hell have they been telling you?” 

“I was a climatologist. I worked for the Program because I was infected with HT7 alpha, and as a result, I could use alien technology. Dr. Markinson said everyone was officially a member of the military, but I got the impression I was just a scientist with an incidental, inconsequential military rank. That’s not what you… remember?” he asked uncertainly.

Beside him, he could almost feel Agam hunting for words, struggling to stay calm. “I know you’re skeptical of my memories, but you, Collins,” she shook her head. “From what I was able to piece together before I got caught, you were the Military equivalent of the second coming. Genius commander, brilliant strategist, all-around superhero of the planet-saving variety.”

Misha stopped in his tracks jaw dropping. “What?”

Face scrunched up in obvious frustration, Agam pinched her nose. “Have you _looked_ at yourself in the mirror?” she waved her hand at his arm.

White lines of scar tissue crisscrossed his forearm. Some were twisted and knotted and raised, others sunken—the precise lines of surgical cuts—all of them were stark and pale next to the increasingly healthy flush of his skin, casting iridescent reflections in the moonlight. “I was in an explosion.”

“What about that bullet scar just below your collar bone?” Agam asked, brushing her finger against the shiny, puckered spot on his chest.

“I got shot while resisting treatment and trying to escape,” he said, parroting Dr. Forrest’s explanation.

“Ah, and that explains why some of the scars on your arm are at least a _decade_ old, why the surgical tracks cross each other suggesting multiple surgeries at different times… and of course,” she said, leaning in so close he could feel her breath puffing against his skin, “that explains all the scars hidden under your clothes. Sure, explosion and shot trying to escape, the rest of the time a harmless climatologist—that’s a much more logical explanation than _years_ of combat experience?”

“You think I was a Colonel because I’ve got some scars and knew the bridges were bugged?” he protested.

“I’m just saying you should _think_ about it. Take a look at yourself. Compare it to what they’re _saying_ , and see if it adds up.”

~~~

**July 2014—ORDA Medical Complex, Texas, Earth**

He’d been asking for weeks—possibly months, to see his belongings, anything from his old life. He’d hoped that maybe a physical reminder would help him to remember. Finally, the therapy team said he could see his things and set Misha loose on a small room that looked more like an oversized storage locker than any sort of living quarters.

He’d been pawing through the mementos and documents, growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of recognition, when a photograph—a real paper photo printed from film—slipped out of the stack. He caught it in his right hand and held it gingerly. It was cracked and creased and the corners were worn—from being lovingly handled and carted around to myriad locations in all imaginable conditions. He set the stack down on the bed, careful so they wouldn’t go cascading off the mattress and onto the floor, and examined the picture more closely. He didn’t recognize the young man in the image—it wasn’t anyone he’d been (re)introduced to or seen on base in the few weeks since they’d started taking him out to the more populated areas—but he could tell the photo was his and that it had been important to him. As he inspected it more closely, he found himself running a finger over the man’s face. 

“Ahem.”

Misha immediately recognized Dr. Markinson’s unsubtle cough, and turned to face him, barely surprising a crow of victory when he completed the rapid change of position with only a small wave of dizziness.

“I was going to ask you how long you’d been on your feet, but it looks like it was a good idea I brought this.” He patted his hands on the back of the wheelchair he had wheeled into the room in front of him.

Misha smiled, “Two hours, and I’m almost not dizzy.”

“Well, almost isn’t not at all, and we’ve got a long walk ahead of us. I’d like you to get some fresh air today during your counseling session,” Dr. Markinson replied jovially. “Come on,” he beckoned Misha over with his hand, “Tracee will have my hide if I let you slip or fall or overexert yourself.”

“Wouldn’t want to piss off the physical therapist,” Misha agreed, starting over towards the wheelchair. He almost wanted to protest (even though by now he knew it wouldn’t matter, if they wanted him in a chair, he was going in the chair), but a second, unexpected wave of dizziness overcame him on his third step, causing him to stumble.

Dr. Markinson caught him and eased him down into the chair.

“Sorry,” Misha said, distractedly. That second wave of dizziness had felt different than the last, almost familiar. He had half a mind to ask of he’d suffered from migraines or inner ear problems before, when he looked down at his shaking hands and remembered the photo. That felt much more important than why dizziness might feel familiar, so when he opened his mouth to speak, the question that came out was, “Do you know who that is, in the picture?”

Dr. Markinson glanced at the photo, but his expression gave nothing away. “How about we discuss the picture during your therapy session _if_ ,” he held up a finger, you promise to discuss ‘touchy feely crap’ for ten whole minutes without complaint?”

Misha bit his lip. He really wanted to know the significance of the picture. “Five,” he countered.

“Seven,” Dr. Markinson shot back, as he twirled the wheelchair around.

“You actually know what the picture is about, or is this going to be me signing away my afternoon for nothing?” Misha glanced up and gave the doctor a probing look.

“I do know,” he replied in a gentle tone.

“Ok, deal,” Misha agreed.

~~~

“You were married.” The words came only after the long trek through long, white halls with big picture windows looking out on formally landscaped gardens that held no hint of familiarity. Wherever he was stationed before, it wasn’t here.

“He was my husband,” Misha realized aloud.

“Yes, he was,” Dr. Markinson agreed. The breeze whipped up around them almost stealing the doctor’s words. Honeysuckle, a hint of spring chill, and a feeling of heaviness accompanied the gust as if to signify a portent.

But a portent of what? “What happened?” Misha held back the “to him” that desperately wanted to escape. It was possible, after all, this man was out there somewhere, and it was their relationship that had died or fallen apart. Perhaps Misha had kept the picture as a memento of a better, happier time. After all, he had no memories of this man, so there was no reason for the certainty he felt that divorce wasn’t the reason for his husband’s absence.

The prolonged delay in Dr. Markinson’s response made Misha break his focus on the worn and battered photo and look up. Hollow pain and reluctance on Dr. Markinson’s eyes confirmed what his gut had already told him.

It was too much, and Misha had to look away. Green and blue dotted with bursts of vivid color greeted his eyes wherever he looked. The base’s therapeutic hospital gardens. Neatly trimmed grass carpeted rolling hills landscaped out of an otherwise flat terrain. Patches of long, tall, blue-green grass ringed several broad and gnarled trees—live oak and cherry, he thought—and graced the banks of a network of small ponds. Winding stone walkways wended their way between the ponds and trees and along the meander bends of the manmade stream that connected it all. Arched footbridges wide enough for a wheelchair traversed the stream at irregular intervals and connected the winding path with others. In the distance, Misha could see a long, graceful arc of a broad bridge that crossed and overlooked an even larger pond. People were standing on it and sitting on benches built into it. Some were walking across it, strolling slowly. Sun warmed the world from the blue sky above and clusters of red, purple, and yellow flowers arranged around the outsides of circular seating areas, each populated with two granite semilunate benches, like the ones on which he and Dr. Markinson now sat. The world seemed so perfect, almost silent, and yet he knew it was all an illusion, false comfort built in to add a soothing backdrop to conversations like these—learning about how he lost the husband he didn’t (couldn’t) remember having.

“He was infected.”

Misha snapped back to face the doctor, ignoring the way the world swam around him. He knew what that statement meant. He didn’t need to hear _like you_ ; that certainty was spoken plain as day in the doctor’s expression. There was no need to say _with what_ —it often seemed like HT7 alpha was the only infectious agent in existence. Maybe it was the only one that mattered.

The doctor seemed to be gauging him for a response. Misha wasn’t sure what Dr. Markinson was looking for, but he must have found it, because he gave a little nod and continued speaking. “He was very, _resistant_ to the treatment. He refused to cooperate, ran away,” he shook his head, “several, several times. When we finally did get him to the hospital he was very sick. We started the treatment protocols but—”

“He didn’t make it,” Misha supplied.

“No he didn’t,” the doctor confirmed.

Misha focused on the picture again. He held it on his lap, spread and smoothed it with his thumbs. Part of him felt like it was reaching into the photograph for some sort of sense memory that would never, could never come. How did one mourn a spouse one could not remember having? Did he even want to remember? Had they been happy? Would the memories be clouded, distorted by unhinged, paranoid insanity or otherwise ravaged by the disease that had nearly claimed them both? Maybe it would be better not remembering, but better for whom? Terrified agony churned in his gut when he thought about being gone and completely unremembered, forgotten like he had never existed. Didn’t he owe it to his husband, his _late_ husband, to try harder and remember? Should he be mourning? Had he mourned? What if by avoiding reminders of his husband he hampered his ability to remember everyone and everything else? If the man had been as central to Misha’s existence as the battered photo suggested, wouldn’t he be woven through all Misha’s memories? But wouldn’t remembering now be all risk with no reward? All he would get would be grief and loss and pain and none of the companionship and love and laughter and fun. 

Should he be mourning? He didn’t really feel like that, but yet he wasn’t numb. He was... disappointed because he had the sense he—this Misha, the person he was now—would have liked the opportunity to know the man smiling up at him from glossy ink on paper. He was sad too, for the man he had been, because surely for _that_ Misha, the loss of his husband would have been devastating. But that loss and sadness belonged to someone else, it was removed from him. Part of him felt that was wrong. The rest was just grateful to be spared the pain. Recovery was enough pain as it was. 

Realizing he’d been silent for several minutes, fixating on the photograph in his hands, he looked up at Dr. Markinson. “I’m all right, at least as much as I can be. I—don’t remember him, except—when I look at the picture I—somehow I know he’s important to me. I like his smile and want to know what he’s thinking, and... I’m sad that I’ll never get to. Then I think maybe I knew the answer to that once, and if I’ll remember, I’ll have my answer, only then the grief will come, and maybe I’m better off letting that be someone else’s pain.” Leaning back in his seat, Misha sighed. “Because I know you’re gonna ask, that makes me feel guilty and a little shallow and ashamed, because I think I would want me to remember him, to honor his memory. It’s just that right now, having a husband, a dead husband, it feels like a relationship I’ve inherited from someone else, and I’m not sure what to do with that.” That phrasing reminded him of something... _Star Wars_? 

_Qwi Xux, talking about her relationship with Wedge, after Kyp wiped her memories,_ a voice that wasn’t Misha’s own, but yet felt familiar, said in the back of his mind.

“There’s nothing wrong with having conflicted emotions. You are in an unusual situation, everything you’re feeling is valid, and it’s good that you’re admitting to the feelings and not fighting them. You’re not censuring yourself, and that’s very, very healthy,” the doctor reassured.

“I wish I felt more.” Misha’s voice gave an unexpected waver, and he looked away.

Warm hands enveloped his own, careful of the picture clutched between them. “We’re in uncharted territory here, Misha, it’s important you remember that and don’t beat up on yourself. You were infected with an insidious disease for years. It affected your brain chemistry, altered your behavior, and tried to take over your mind. You’re very lucky we have been able to develop a treatment, but yours is the most advanced case we’ve successfully treated. You’re going through a lot of firsts, but so are all of us. We’ve got to work together and be open to taking things as they come.”

“Work together, huh?” Misha snorted. “That would be a little easier if everyone stopped looking at me like I’m some kind of traitor and a freak.”

“Give them some time. The effects of this disease are devastating, keyed to create distrust, hatred even. People aren’t sure they can trust you yet.” The doctor’s voice was soothing, but guarded.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.” Misha had a sinking sensation he didn’t really want to know.

Twittering songbirds interrupted their conversation, lightening the mood. They both glanced up to see two birds—swallows maybe—chasing each other across the afternoon sky. 

When Misha looked back, he expected the doctor to evade the question.

Instead, Dr. Markinson sat up straight in his seat, crossed his legs at the knee, and clasped his hands together. “There are some members of our medical staff and any number of nonmedical officers who would prefer I not tell you this.” It was as much a warning as an explanation. “Before we... restrained him, your husband attempted to lead an armed insurrection—infected individuals—Markers, as the ORDA Council called them at the time—rising up against the noninfected. Stealing classified documents, state secrets, other materials relevant to planetary security and attempting to deliver these documents offworld...”

“Jesus!” Misha gulped, running his hands through his hair, looking down on the man in the photo smiling up at him from his lap.

“You have to understand, the disease, when it becomes active, has a devastating and degenerative effect on your brain. Some of the others would probably like to court martial me for saying this, but from the perspective of an infected individual, I’m sure everything seems logical, necessary. The virus makes one highly susceptible to paranoia and delusions. Your late husband may have thought he was saving lives or being unjustly pursued. He may have even believed aliens had infiltrated our government.” Dr. Markinson shook his head. “That’s part of why this virus terrifies people so much. You could be infected for years and not know it. When the virus goes into its active phase it makes you do things, hurt people, think and say things you would never do. It hijacks your personality, and all the while you feel like you’re perfectly lucid, rational, even. You lose your mind without knowing it. Most of us find that terrifying.”

Misha nodded in reply. He could understand that fear, sympathize with others’ fear of him, but it didn’t make it any easier. Still, there was something else gnawing at his gut, hovering at the back of his mind. Once he acknowledged it, there was no way to avoid it. “My husband, did I—did I infect him?” Dread clutched at his heart. Misha didn’t know if he could cope if the answer was “yes”; it would mean he was responsible for his husband’s actions, for driving him mad, and ultimately, for his death. Memories or not, Misha didn’t know if he could live with that knowledge.

“No, _no_!” The doctor’s answer was hasty, but rung true. “Before you ask, no, he didn’t infect you either. You were exposed when you were completing postdoctoral research in the arctic, that wasn’t a lie.” 

Misha nodded trying to focus on the doctor’s hands, which were held out in supplication. “Then how?”

“We believe one or both of his parents were infected. There’s no evidence the virus ever became active in them, nevertheless, it was passed to your husband during childbirth. It was pure chance that we even found out he was a carrier—you were in a car accident, and he was exposed to a detection device. We—” The doctor seemed to struggle, “No one knows when the virus became active, or for how long it was active. There’s some evidence he always exhibited signs of paranoia, so it could have been years, maybe even longer than you knew him. In the end, his infection was far more advanced even than your own. But there was nothing you did, nothing you could have done.”

“Is—is he buried somewhere?” Maybe seeing a headstone would give him some closure, or at least give him a place to focus his grief if his memories surfaced.

“He was cremated. It’s standard protocol for all infected individuals—probably unnecessary, but we tend to operate out of paranoia of our own, and an overabundance of caution.” 

The frown that crossed Misha’s face echoed his falling spirits.

“But we have a mausoleum, a beautiful, peaceful place full of light and air, where their ashes are interred and each victim of HT7 beta has a plaque. If you’re interested at some point, when you’re a little stronger, I’ll recommend you receive clearance for the trip.

“Thank you.” The sentiment was genuine. “I’ll think about it. I think it might be...” every word felt inadequate, “nice, at some point.” It would take time to absorb the information, come to terms with the new pieces of his past. In the meantime, there was one more detail he needed to know. “My husband, what was his name?”

“Jensen. His name was Jensen.”

~~~

Two weeks after the his first trip to his storage space, Misha found himself again going through the belongings, this time specifically looking for more photographs. Dr. Markinson was lurking as he had the last time, although he seemed lightly less concerned now that Misha would keel over at any moment.

He’d found what he was looking for—a framed photo of him and his husband together—and was trying, willing, wishing that it would somehow jog a memory.

“Wait a minute…” Misha stammered straightening up. “I thought… I seem to recall something about our government, or the US government anyway, only recognizing straight people’s marriages.” 

“Funny you should remember that,” Dr. Markinson said with what Misha was learning to recognize as his ‘honestly amused’ smile. “Right before you…” he waived his hand.

“Died?” Misha asked one eyebrow raised in challenge. He crossed his arms defensively, the photo still clutched in his hands. _Fuck it_. They could dance around it all they wanted, but Misha sure felt like he—the _old_ Misha, the one everyone remembered with a mixture of respect and revulsion, the one this Misha had no recollection of being—had died and been resurrected as a different person. 

“If you want to call it that,” Markinson was answering. “Right about that time the Supreme Court came out with a ruling that paved the way for federal recognition at least. Benefits and the like, they’re not denying them anymore.”

Misha’s expression must have been more skeptical than he realized, because Markinson gave a funny little laugh and continued. “Not jogging any memories? Well, I doubt you ever knew it. You were… You were very, very sick for a while there before the end.”

It was Misha’s turn to laugh, an abrupt, bitter, snorting sound that burst from him unbidden. “I guess following legal news probably wasn’t my top priority. But hey, I remembered something, right? That’s a good sign?” In his hands the faces in the photo were smiling up at him. Frozen forever in time. They might as well be from another universe because as much as he could recognize one of the faces as his own, there was no recognition there. No stirring of emotion. No memory of the man whose shoulders his arms were wrapped around. His husband was a stranger. Sighing, he pushed the thoughts away and looked up. “Why do you look so guilty?” 

“It’s nothing.”

“No seriously. I’ve been spending enough time with you, Doctor, to recognize your expressions. My brain may be hotwired and my memories may be holeyer than Swiss cheese, but I know guilt when I see it. My illness wasn’t your fault.” 

For a few moments, Markinson said nothing, and Misha was left wondering if he had crossed a line without knowing it. He opened his mouth to backpedal, when Markinson spoke. “Your husband. He was a lawyer. Or at least, he used to be.”

“Oh,” Misha said dumfounded. Whatever his suspicions, it wasn’t what he was expecting. Looking at Markinson, he was pretty sure it was the truth too. “I had no idea.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Markinson seemed to shake himself and glanced at his watch. His demeanor when he spoke again, had completely shifted. Gone was any hint of real emotion, the cracks in his armor boarded up and painted over, and back was the unnaturally controlled psychologist with the face that gave away nothing. “You’re overdue for physical therapy. I can petition for you to be allowed back here to go through more of your old things, but for now, I think you’ve had enough.”

Misha looked down at the photo in his hands about to put it back where he’d found it.

“Do you… do you remember anything?” Dr. Markinson asked, his tone clinical, revealing nothing.

“No, nothing at all,” Misha replied, but as he moved to put the photo back something inside him, some part of him that was unconscious, unnamed, unknown, resisted. He looked at the photo again. _Nope._ The man in the photo was still a stranger to him, yet trying to let the image go felt like he was tearing his heart out, stabbing him in the gut— _Like a Slick’s blade through the lung._ His hand shook. He couldn’t put it back. “I, uh, do think I’ll hold onto this though.”

Markinson looked skeptical, his mask slipping for a moment and once again letting some emotion through.

“I may not remember anything, but it’s nice to know that whoever I was, whatever I did, at some point I was happy,” Misha hedged. It wasn’t a lie. Just not the whole truth.

It was the right thing to say. “Keep it, then,” Markinson answered with a bland smile. “I’m sure Dr. Hanniger would agree that kind of emotional support is good for your recovery.”

Misha smiled, sighing inwardly. It felt like he’d dodged a bullet. There was still a nagging feeling he was missing something, but he pushed it aside. 

It would be weeks before he connected that sense of _truth_ he’d gotten when he looked at Markinson with the same half-truth he’d told about the photo. Markinson had been guilty about something alright, and it the knowledge Misha’s husband had been a lawyer.

~~~

Their afternoon walks in the garden had become somewhat of a regular occurrence. Part of Misha was suspicious that the doctors let them continue, especially when they started wandering farther and farther out, sometimes leaving the path and never once stopping at one of the benches or fountains or clusters of flora he was almost certain were bugged. A part of Misha’s subconscious that still belonged to whomever he used to be kept nagging and prodding him, insisting the freedom meant they were being watched in new and more subtle ways.

But that didn’t stop him from doing it. Daily walks were one thing he could control. One point of normalcy in a sea of chaos and blackness over which he had no say.

It didn’t stop him from prompting Agam, though. “We really should find a new place to do this,” he muttered two days after Dr. Markinson had taken him to see his old belongings.

 _—Possessions…_ Belongings implied a place, a sense of self and identity and being that Misha just did not have.

“You’re right,” Agam replied, her mouth quirking up at the corner in an almost-smile. “Part of me wants to say ‘let them watch; let them listen’… But it’s a very small part. The other 99 percent of me… well, 94 percent is screaming out.”

“And the other five?” Misha prodded.

“Thinks it’s a really good idea if we at least look like we’re playing along. Don’t seem too knowledgeable. The perception of suspicious behavior would be far worse than anything they could learn from us.”

“Hmm,” Misha murmured noncommittally, the feelings of rage and impotence that always followed musings on their current caged situation dissipating as quickly as they’d gathered and replaced by the numb emptiness that seemed to follow him like a cloud.

“What’s wrong?” Agam asked astutely after a minute or two in silence.

“What makes you think there’s something wrong?” Misha turned to regard her with a cocked head.

“Well, for one, that you think you could conceal your moods from me, when we’ve been more or less stuck in here with each other as our only company for _months_.”

“There’s doctors,” Misha said, gesturing at the expanse of distant white-coated figures.

“That’s bullshit.” 

Their eyes met and they both laughed. 

“Seriously, what’s up?” She swatted his arm and stopped, turning to face him, arms crossed.

Her expression reminded him of someone… 

“You’ve been off for two days, ever since Markinson disappeared with you for hours. If he’s got some miserable new therapy that makes us feel even shitter about ourselves than usual, I think I deserve to know about it. At least warn me.”

Misha glanced around nervously, part of him knowing he looked shifty and suspicious as hell, but unable to stop himself, unable to care. “It’s not that.”

“Then what? Did he give you some horrible prognosis? Are you trying to protect me?” Agam’s voice rose as she stood on her tiptoes leaning in, glaring at him. “Because I think I made it fucking clear how I feel about that kind of—”

“I found out I was married, okay?” he answered with a little more heat than he’d intended. 

Her face blanked momentarily. She fell back on her heels with an audible thunk. “Oh Misha, I am sorry.” Agam’s eyes seemed to fix on her shoes, absorbed by the stone of the path. “Somehow, I think I knew that.”

“ _He’s_ dead, if you were wondering.”

To that Agam scoffed, slapping Misha’s arm again. “Seriously, am I supposed to be shocked that you’re gay? I already knew that.”

“No,” Misha shook his head. “It’s not… I’m just lashing out because I’m expecting disapproval.”

“Whoa, sounds like someone’s been spending too much time in sessions with Dr. Markinson,” Agam retorted, her laughter only half-forced.

“You wanna tell me what’s really bothering you?”

Misha glanced around again, unable to suppress or ignore the creeping feeling on the back of his neck. “I think we’ve gotta find a new place to talk.”

“I’ve actually got a lead on that,” Agam said, smiling. “Seriously, they don’t pay nearly enough attention to janitorial staff around here. That and they stupidly assume everyone is monolingual. But I’ll tell you about that later. Right now, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t—I can’t remember anything about him. I found a picture, but there’s no memory there, no emotional attachment,” Misha admitted.

“Are you sure the photo was real? Could they be feeding you a story that seems plausible—”

“The photo’s real,” Misha countered. “I—last night I had a dream, and it was like I remembered enough to know it was the truth, but I still couldn’t feel anything.”

“And…”

“And,” Misha shrugged his right hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck, “a part of me is relieved. Part of me thinks it’s better this way. If I can’t remember, there’s nothing to grieve. He wasn’t _my_ husband. His loss is not my loss. He belongs to someone else. This other Misha Collins, who was some kind of hero and some kind of monster. I’m not sure I want to be him. And maybe if I can’t remember… it will just be easier. Better.”

“But you feel guilty,” Agam observed, her voice soft.

“Yes,” Misha admitted.

“About wanting to avoid grief? Shunning the memory of a man you loved?”

Misha cringed and began walking again despite himself. Yeah there was that. It made him feel like the worst kind of monster. How could he be a decent human being if he would essentially erase someone, deny the dead what little legacy they could leave if only to escape his own pain. 

“Misha, wait!” Agam called after him, jogging to catch up. She could jog after all, her exposure to the virus had been relatively brief. Her recovery hampered more by psychological factors, than physical ones, or so they said. “There was an ‘or’ there—I was going to say more. I wasn’t done. Didn’t want to make you feel—”

“Like a dick.” 

Agam had caught up with him. She frowned. “No I wasn’t trying to make you feel like a dick. I was going to say, is the reason maybe that you’re afraid if you did remember you’d feel guilty… for what you supposedly did, or what he did.”

Misha paused and shifted uncomfortably. “That too, I guess,” he said softly.

“I can’t tell you how to feel about remembering or not, and I can’t tell you how you should grieve, but… Whatever you do, don’t feel guilt over that.”

“You know something,” Misha realized.

He was answered with silence. 

“If you know something, tell me?”

Agam stopped this time, arms crossed, fingers tapping against her elbow. “There are a lot of things I know… or knew, or _thought_ I knew.”

“But you can’t trust me…” Misha supplied, sounding as crestfallen as he felt.

“I can’t trust anyone, least of all myself. If—if what they’re saying is true. If what we’re being told is real, then all of it, everything I know means nothing. I don’t know enough yet… can’t remember enough, but I know that whatever happened. What they say about you,” she shook her head. “You were doing the right thing, or the best thing you could do under the circumstances with the information available. Don’t let that stop you from reclaiming yourself, from remembering _him_.”


	4. Unraveling History

**December 2014—ADF Training Facility, Pavilla Prime**

“It’s show and tell time again,” Katie quipped. 

“I know,” Jensen answered, toeing at his boots and picking at his BDU shirt where it was tucked into his pants. 

“And you’re on show-and-tell duty, again,” Katie observed, letting out a low whistle. “Weren’t you on last month?”

“And the month before that,” Jensen confirmed, pacing. “I think Jared’s cheating,” he confided.

“He is,” Gen confirmed stepping into the tent. “He thinks you’re more... relevant,” Gen added as she took up position inside the doorway, leaning against the closest support pillar.

“That’s not quite the word I’d pick for it,” Jensen murmured. “Jared just doesn’t like the kids seeing his scars. Thinks they’ll take him less seriously because he doesn’t go out into the field as much.” He didn’t stop pacing. “Besides, it makes training more awkward because he’s there for the day-to-day.”

“You’re only half right,” Gen answered with a note of disapproval that made Jensen blush and stop mid-stride. “And you’re projecting. Jen, seriously, you need more therapy.”

“I don’t have time for therapy,” he gritted out. 

“True, but it doesn’t mean you need it any less,” Katie piped up.

Jensen glanced over and glared at her. 

Katie just crossed her arms defiantly and glared back.

 _Right_ , he was never going to get anywhere that way. 

“You’re the one who has body image issues, not Jared.” Gen pushed off the doorway with her shoulder, and strode into the tent. “Last time someone suggested what you just did, he turned around and dropped them.”

“Mostly, no one is actually stupid enough to try that because they’re terrified of you,” Katie pointed out, addressing Gen. 

Gen shot back a toothy smile. “What can I say? I try.”

“You also know where all of them live,” Jensen interjected.

Genevieve laughed. “You’re right that Jared doesn’t like the awkwardness that sometimes comes from training them after... Too many questions... But I meant it when I said you’re more relevant.” 

“What does that even mean?” Jensen asked. “Relevant how?”

It was Katie who answered. “Jensen you show them how bad things can get when you do this job, fighting this war. You also remind them how resilient we are as a species, and how adaptable. And you’re out there in the thick of it, every day. Everything that’s happened and you don’t stop.”

Words were on the tip of his tongue to respond, but the tent flap fluttered again and Gumenick stuck her head in, firing off an almost too-casual salute. “

“Sirs,” she addressed, “they’re ready for you, General.”

Jensen nodded, swallowing hard around the lump in his throat that so often accompanied the self-consciousness. Not for the first time, he wished Misha was here to do this. Misha was so much more suited for this... in so many ways. Not to mention, if Misha were here, maybe there wouldn’t be a need for this, for any of this. 

_If wishes were horses, and all that..._

Instead, he followed Gumenick, letting his feet lead him, sinking inside his mind, reaching into the core of himself with his consciousness so he could find the strength, the tone, the wisdom, to convey what he needed to. When he was as ready as he was ever going to be, he looked up, reaching out with his mind as he did so, letting his thoughts brush against the minds of those assembled.

Roughly two hundred cadets stood shoulder to shoulder in a long line two people deep. They wore the dark green training uniforms that looked like basic BDUs that wouldn’t have been out of place on Earth with the distinctive double-helix trim and patches that were distinctively Naiian and part of the overall Auroran Defense Force. 

The air was crisp and cool, and steam was rising from a nearby stream. The last remnants of dawn filled the sky along the horizon casting the assembled cadets in a warm, but almost eerie glow. The ground was wet with dew, but crunched under his feet with each step. The cadets regarded him with a mix of awe and trepidation as his eyes glanced over them. So many were so very, very young. They’d had to accept recruits as young as 16 to keep the teenagers of Aurora form running off on their own and getting themselves killed in the name of freedom and protecting their homeworld. 

But there were others, older adults who’d served ORDA and retired to Aurora. People of all ages who’d made the escape from Earth. Young professionals no longer welcome in the same star system as their former careers. Athletes. Students. Police. Military from outside ORDA’s sphere of influence. Mothers, fathers, children... Naiians. And humans too. They represented every walk of life, every facet of society, and they were all here, training as soldiers. Training to fight possibly the biggest war their people had ever known. And they were looking to Jensen--a lawyer--to lead them, to show them how to do it. 

“Atteeeeeen-tion!” Gumenick called out, driving the two lines of cadets to snap to attention, their backs standing straighter, their eyes locked forward, hands rising in a crisp uniform salute. “General Ackles has the floor.” 

_You’re on_ , a voice that sounded like Misha coaxed from the back of his mind. And in that instant all the nerves and uncertainty, the awkwardness and disbelief, the embarrassment and fear left him. Jensen became the General, or rather allowed that aspect of himself to rise to the surface. This had to be done. And like Jared thought, Jensen was the best person to do it. 

“Welcome to hell’s back door,” he said, voice carrying in the perfect silence as he began a slow, measured stroll up and down the lines of troops. “That’s not a name we’ve given this place or a euphemism for how grueling we expect your training to be. Although I promise you it _will be_ every bit as difficult, challenging, and painful as it needs to be to prepare you for what is out there. Hell’s back door is where you are, where we all are in this war, in our struggle for autonomy and freedom. For the right to self-determination! We aren’t fighting for land or planets, territory or travel rights. We are fighting to live. We are fighting to have a future. To exist. And those who aim to stop us... You can’t count on them to listen to reason or show mercy. You can’t expect them to think of the children or just let us be. They think--they _believe_ we are evil. Those of us who are Naiian are a virus. A disease, a scourge that threatens to spread and infect others. We are dangerous and need to be wiped out. Those of us who are human are duped, crazy, enabling. A threat to all because you want to coexist with us. We’ve already been run off one planet, and there are many more of us who remain behind, in danger, some afraid and alone, trapped in a planetary prison. Our enemy will not hesitate to do that again. They are looking for Aurora and when they find it, none of us, neither human nor Naiian, young nor old, will be safe.”

As he paced he let his fingers hover over his belt, then tugged, at his BDU shirt and undershirt, working them loose. When both were fully untucked he stopped pacing and faced the cadets. His fingers began working the buttons one by one as he spoke. 

“I’m not here to cheer you on.” 

There was a faint murmur from somewhere in the line. 

“I’m not here to tell you to join, or to fight, or convince you the cause is just.”

He paused again and a few more aborted whispers drifted to his ears. He brushed those aside as he did the miasma of emotions and stray thoughts pouring off the gathered cadets.

“Only you can make those decisions for yourselves. Only you can decide how much is too high a price to pay or whether your right to continued survival, self-determination, and freedom is capable of having a price. Only you can decide to fight, for how long, and in what capacity. My job,” he paused, his fingers nearing the last button, “is to make sure you make your decisions freely and knowingly, with informed consent. My job is to make sure you know the cost.” 

He stood silent, his shirt unbuttoned, hands gripping the placket as he prepared to pull it open, knuckles blanching as he got closer to his task. 

The cadets were silent. Their emotions restrained. Their thoughts suppressed. It was as close to true _silence_ as a Naiian ever experienced without the use of psychotropic drugs.

“Most of you know I lost my husband to this war. He was an exceptional officer, an inspiring leader, and the love of my life,” Jensen admitted, his voice breaking, so half of the last word was swallowed. “He gave his life for all our lives. For our freedom. He died so that many of us could live and escape Earth.”

He pulled the placket apart so that his undershirt was exposed, and the shiny ends of surgical scars peeked out above the white of its collar. 

“Many of you know my parents are Naiians and they’re still trapped on Earth. My sister and brother and I haven’t received word of them since we escaped, and we don’t know if they’re still alive, still free.” His thoughts darkened as he thought of all those still on Earth, everyone he had yet to save. “A few of you know my niece and nephew were kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and experimented on.”

Someone gasped. 

“Some of you know that before the end of the last war, I was kidnapped and tortured. Vivisection was almost my fate.” It sounded melodramatic, but it was true and they needed to hear it.

He could _feel_ the eye-rolls, the mental dismissal from those who thought he was making shit up. It was time, then. 

“That could happen to you.” He waited a beat, glaring, eyes boring into them, daring them to disbelieve, until enough of them realized a shift in the mood and picked up on the appropriate level of sincerity. When the tittering quieted down, he continued. “But most of you understand that being a POW is going to be bad. And when you get a little farther into your training we will put you through hell to ensure you have the best chance of escape, evasion, and survival.”

He opened his shirt the rest of the way and let it fall backwards off his shoulders, he gathered it together so it wouldn’t hit the ground, and passed it silently to Gumenick as she walked by. Then he wrapped his fingers under the hem of his undershirt, and pulled it off, lifting it up over his head and placing it in Gumenick’s outstretched hands. He was naked from the waist up now, just his dog tags hanging against his chest, the metal of the chain cool where it touched his skin. His pants were slung low, intentionally, to ensure as much of his body was on display as possible without actually having him run around naked. The wind picked up, blustering against his skin, making him acutely aware of each place he couldn’t feel it and every place it didn’t feel _right_. For a moment he was exposed, and it terrified him. 

Jensen breathed, in and out, and again, and his perception shifted. The chaos inside him settled, leaving him in control. In control and empowered. Every experience etched in his skin had forged him, made him who he was today, and he had no shame. There was nothing to be ashamed of...

For now, the cadets were still silent. He could feel the confusion pouring off them in waves, and curiosity and recognition blooming in a few minds. But he was facing them with his left side angled slightly away, and in the early morning sun many of his scars were harder to see. 

In the second row, someone leaned forward, taking a step out of line. Another cadet murmured something under her breath that caused her neighbor to suck in a loud breath. 

It was time then. “I’m not here to warn you about what you already know intellectually. I’m here to show you the _reality_ of what we face, what you will be facing every day. The risk that comes every time we open a wormhole.” Jensen started pacing the line again, turning toward them so his left side was exposed and they had a clear view of his back as he walked away. 

More murmurs rose from the crowd. Someone gasped. 

He could feel a few of them trying very steadfastly to look away. “I want you to look. Not because I’m trying to show off, or make you think I’m a badass,” he paused. “That’s a judgment you need to make for yourselves based on how I _act_ , not how I look. 

“No, you need to look long and hard, and you need to think and process and assimilate. And only then can you decide if you want to be a part of this military. There are weapons called Plasma Rifles, you’ve probably heard of them. Some of you have even seen them. And you may have heard rumors that a lot of Naiians are allergic to them. Well, the rumors are true.”

Someone made an anguished shout, but Jensen ignored it and kept on pacing. When he reached one end of the line, he turned and walked back the other way, making sure everyone had a chance to see. 

“Plasma rifles are the favored weapons of the Licinian military, and ORDA likes them too, especially because they can be particularly devastating to Naiian physiology. But don’t make the mistake that if you’re human or if you’re not allergic that you’re home free. Plasma rifles don’t just burn, they melt your skin. Get hit, even a graze, and you’ll have third degree burns wherever there’s contact. That would be bad enough, but then there’s the concussive blast, the shock wave. It’ll break bones, crush internal organs,” he turned, slowly, stopping so his back was to the cadets, and continued speaking over his shoulder. “Even sever your spinal cord. And let’s not forget, the plasma contains several artificial compounds that reconstitute on contact. One of those, posiphase, is an anticoagulant. So any part of your wound that wasn’t perfectly cauterized during the blast, will provide a great opportunity to bleed out—and bear in mind, that’s especially true for the internal bleeding you’re likely to have. 

“And just in case that wasn’t enough, for those of us who are allergic, the posiphase causes extensive, irreparable nerve damage that can spread far beyond the impact point, so you won’t know you’re injured, or how badly you’re injured, all while you may be bleeding out or slowly dying of dehydration or infection.” Jensen’s voice grew louder as he spoke, so by the end of his explanation, he was shouting. Taking two heaving breaths to steady himself, he turned back to face the cadets. He could feel their outrage and unease, sense their fear, but he didn’t acknowledge it or give in, he just kept plowing along, staring at the horizon behind them. 

“Before you ask, I’ve been shot with a plasma rifle more than once, and yes, I am allergic. Much of what you see is the result of a shot at point blank range. It is possible to survive, I’m not even the only one, or the first among our ranks to do so. General Padalecki survived before me, and if you ask very nicely, he just might show you his scars.”

Somewhere in the lines one of the cadets chuckled. 

“Like I said, I’m not showing you this to convince you I’m a badass. That is something I will have to prove to you with my actions.” He paused at the end of the line and turned slowly. “I’m also not trying to terrify you. Yes. There are dangers out there. Very real, very devastating dangers. You could also be shot, stabbed, electrocuted, vaporized, poisoned, or stunned. But you can survive. I am here to show you what you are capable of. Because the truth is you _can_ survive. 

“Before you ask, yes, the plasma rifle blast did sever my spine. And yes I am walking... Naiians have many unique physiological capabilities. For me, the same neurotransmitters that let me communicate with my team in the field, that let me sense others’ thoughts, also compensate for what my body cannot physically process. We don’t... there is not yet enough evidence to determine if this is a standard response for all Naiians. But if this is something all of us can do, then it something we would like to be available to everyone.”

He paused and listened to the cadets, letting his mind brush over their thoughts, assessing.

“I know some of you are human, and you’re wondering what we will expect of you, since you can’t heal like Naiians do,” he said softly, projecting his voice just enough for them to hear while keeping his tone gentle. “I promise you we will never force you to become Naiian, nor will we forget your humanity and throw you into places and situations you can’t survive. But I also promise you if your life depends on it, you will have the option, the option to say yes, or no, and we will honor your wishes. 

“To all of you, I cannot promise you won’t face death, torture, imprisonment or any of the horrors of this war, but I promise you we will not expose you to unnecessary risks. We will not ask you to sacrifice your lives or your health unless it is absolutely necessary. We give you the choice to serve, and we honor that choice. I will never waste your lives. I will never betray your trust. And wherever possible, I will give you the choice I never had. But a part of that is making sure you understand.”

He walked back to the center of the line where Gumenick was waiting with his shirts. Jensen tugged the undershirt over his head unceremoniously and slipped his arms into his BDU top, shrugging it up onto his shoulders. “Any questions?” he asked, almost rhetorically. There were always questions, but the cadets never voiced them right away. 

Sure enough, Jensen was greeted with silence. He could feel the questions forming and looked forward to the deluge of inquiries that would undoubtedly await him at the end of the day. 

Turning and cocking an eyebrow at Gumenick. He said, “Thank you for your time,” saluted the cadets, and left. As he hurried back to the tent, he could hear Gumenick start barking orders at the still shell-shocked troops, jolting them out of their contemplation. 

“Was it just me or was that a little more... melodramatic than usual?” Genevieve asked as Jensen lifted the tent flap. 

“You were listening?” he asked.

“We always listen,” Katie chided. 

Jensen shrugged. Gen was right, but he wasn’t sure he could put a finger on why she was right. “I’m not sure if melodramatic is the right word but... looking at them today. They’re so young. And so dedicated, and eager. I never had the kind of passion they do, and I don’t know...” He shrugged again. “I always wonder what it would have been like if ORDA had recruited me, sought me out for my abilities... if I had a chance to say ‘yes’ rather than having my world yanked out from under me and turned on its head. I look at them, and I can give them the choice I never had. The part of me that’s still a lawyer wants to make sure they emphatically give their informed consent. And that means they need to know everything.”

**December 2014—ORDA Medical Facility, Texas, Earth**

“Do you ever think about what it will be like if we remember? Or what our lives would be like if we never got sick, never forgot? Agam asked Misha one day during one of their secret conversations in the boiler room. Agam was leaning against the boiler—they’d discovered the second time they came down here a few of the boilers weren’t in use. Not entirely surprising since the base was apparently somewhere in Texas and it was the middle of summer (or felt like it anyway—they were both pretty fuzzy about the date, and the doctors weren’t entirely forthcoming with details). Misha found it unsettling to watch, his subconscious telling him “hot,” and “no,” and causing him to wince in sympathy to the pain he half-expected Agam to be feeling.

Misha just blinked up at her from his customary spot on the floor, knees tucked up against his chest, arms resting over the top of his knees. It was still a challenge to get his body folded into this position, but it felt the most defensible, _safe_ , so Misha saw it as a challenge rather than a deterrent. Sure, it stretched the hell out of his shoulder, but each day they came down here he managed it and managed to get up again, and each time was a little easier than the last. 

“Have you?” Agam asked, when a minute or so had passed and Misha still hadn’t responded.

He shrugged, right shoulder moving more than the left. “I don’t know. Not really, I guess.” He wasn’t trying to blow her off, it was just a difficult question to answer, and Misha wasn’t entirely sure why. “I thought you didn’t believe we ever were sick?” he protested, deflecting the question.

“I don’t think we were _sick_ , but that doesn’t mean I’m in denial of reality,” Agam countered, scowling at him. “Our brains were different. We were different, they did something to us, and now we don’t remember anything. I find myself spending a good portion of each day wondering what I’d be doing if I remembered more, what the _other_ me would do in this situation. Just wanted to know if I was the only one.”

 _And that’s it_ , Jensen realized. They were _different_ … “Not really, I guess,” he tried.

Agam’s piercing glare prompted him to explain a bit more.

“We’re different people, I mean. Whoever I was before, the Misha Collins the doctors talk about, the one who was married, whose records they have. He’s not me. He had a different brain, different memories, different emotions. As far as I can tell, I’m just someone who shares the body he left behind.”

She was squinting at him now, her head cocked to the side, body still, all the nervous energy of a few moments ago, gone. 

“If I remembered, I’d probably have guilt. I’d be grieving. I’d be angry; maybe I’d even be an enemy. How is that better? How is that _me_?”

“Guess, I never thought about it like that,” Agam whispered softly.

“Sorry,” Misha offered. “Didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

“No,” she answered, shaking herself, and gradually letting gravity drag her down to the floor so her body mirrored Misha’s. “I guess I just never thought about it that way. Do you _worry_ about remembering then?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “I don’t want my fear to interfere with my recovery though, so I just try to push it aside. Figure I’d deal with it if I absolutely have to.” And that answer was easy, because Misha had stopped fighting himself on that point almost from his first session with Dr. Markinson. It was pretty clear he’d go crazy if he tried to prepare for _everything_ , so he just let some of it go. Tried to _roll with the punches_ so to speak.

Agam seemed satisfied with his answer and let it rest. Of course, she was the only one. Everyone else wanted to know what he had remembered, what he might have _felt_ that could give them insight into what was happening in his mind. He got tired of trying to remember. Wished they’d let him forget. But it didn’t look like that was going to happen any time soon.

~~~

The doctors all wanted Misha to remember.

Every session with every doctor was more of the same. What did he remember? Had he recalled any more details? Could he remember his childhood? His time as an officer? His Husband? Some of their questions were more subtle, teasing out details he would have learned in his degree programs and then digging further, casting out tendrils and trying to follow them to facts. Questions about foraminifera in glacial ice cores and did he remember what scientists could learn about climatic conditions from that data spiraled out into did he remember the incident when he first broke his arm and ribs and from there to whether he recalled any of the subsequent injuries, up to and including the incident that apparently cost Misha a lung and saddled him with a slew of uber-high-tech medical paraphernalia that no one seemed to want to tell him anything about. He remembered some of the science details, the knowledge was there, but none of the context. He couldn’t recall how he learned the information, or why he learned it. Nor could he recall what he _did_ with that information—if anything—or whether he enjoyed it. He hated answering “no, no, no, no, no,” explaining question after question he just didn’t recall.

Until.

Until he realized the doctors seemed a lot more concerned about getting Misha to remember to make _them_ feel better, not to make _him_ feel better. Because what Misha had told Agam was dead true. He wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to remember. It was one thing to know he’d had a husband, had a career, gone crazy, betrayed his country, and had to be subdued like an animal when they tried to treat him. To know his husband’s psychosis had gone so far he’d gotten himself killed. But it would be something else entirely to _remember_. To have actual, first-person recollections to go along with the stories and all the emotional baggage that went along with them. How would someone even _recover_ from that if they could remember? How would you grieve, when you knew, really _knew_ it was your partner’s fault that they were dead? How would you forgive yourself? 

And that realization just raised far scarier questions in Misha’s mind. If he could remember, would he _realize_ now how compromised his judgment was? Would his memories still feel logical, or would they seem twisted and delusional? Would it be like a bad acid trip—not that Misha knew if he’d ever had one of those, but he remembered the _concept_ —or being incredibly drunk (at least he was pretty sure he’d _been_ drunk at some point or another)? Was it something else entirely? Would he lose it if he remembered? Was his mind locking away those memories as a form of self-protection?

Whatever the answers, the doctors didn’t seem to care. Nor did they seem all that concerned at how the questions were eating away at Misha. It was all about them. Misha couldn’t decide if they wanted him to remember so they could give themselves a pat on the back and forgiveness for losing their patients’ memories in the first place, or if their motives were more sinister.

Misha made the mistake—or at least he thought it was at the time—of asking Dr. Markinson. Later on, he’d come to realize it was probably the key to unlocking the tangled mess their lives had become, but at the time, he instantly regretted it. “Why do you care so damn much?” he hissed. The midafternoon Texas sun was beating down on their secluded bench in the seemingly endless garden. It felt more like a brand than a warming beam, and Misha was sick of playing along without getting any answers. “Why do you give a damn if I remember?”

Dr. Markinson stared at him, dumbfounded, the usually smooth and professional doctor was clearly rattled and the first cracks in his armor of perpetual calm were showing.

“It can’t be because you care about me, that you want me to remember for my own sake.”

“Why do you say that?” Dr. Markinson asked, his _counselor_ voice only partially slotted into place, so his voice cracked a little around the last word.

“From what you’ve said, I betrayed my oath to my country, my _planet_ , and so did my husband. You tried to help. We turned around and punched you in the face, and then we turned tail like cowards and ran, and our combined actions succeeded in getting my husband killed. You’ve told me we incited others to follow us. All while we were high on crazy, our brain chemistry altered by a virus that made us delusional. And you told me, I’d been sick for years, going slowly, steadily crazier, and you’re not even sure how _long_ ago I contracted the damn disease.” Misha paused, drawing in a shaky breath.

Dr. Markinson took the moment to nod, which just served to piss Misha off further.

“Why would I want to remember that? Right now, I may not remember who I _was_ , I’m maybe starting to figure out who I _am._ And at least I’m not drowning in guilt or mourning. I’m not sitting around beating myself up, wondering how I could have ever thought my actions made _sense_. Maybe I’m a coward to not want to face that, but why _would_ I? Right now, I can build myself, my life into something _good_. I’d think, as my psychologist, you would be eager to see me keep my sanity, rather than encouraging me to lose it.”

“That’s not… I don’t… Misha, no one here wants to deprive you of your sanity,” Dr. Markinson said nervously, glancing around as if he was afraid someone might be listening in. “This _exercise_ , this treatment—the plan is all about returning you to sanity. We would not wish anything that would jeopardize that.”

“Then why ask me to remember?”

“It’s part of the healing process.” Dr. Markinson’s eyes were earnest, and his hands were twitching on his lap as if they were itching to reach out and grasp Misha’s. 

“Bullshit,” Misha said, the growl in his voice reminding him of someone else in a vague, nebulous way. He had a feeling that delivery meant something to someone the other _Misha_ had known. It was as close to a memory he’d had so far. “Remembering wouldn’t help me to _heal_. It would just fuck me up. So, no, I’m not buying it. You’re after something else. Is it intel that only the Colonel would have known that you’re hoping to get out of me? Is that it? You’re asking me to jeopardize my recovery—” Misha was watching Dr. Markinson’s expression. It seemed disconcertingly _hopeful_ , and helped the pieces to click into place. “No, that’s not it. You’re asking _all of us_ to remember. Sure, it could be a combination of wanting them to heal and to get intel out of me, but it’s been what—a year? Two? Anything I knew would probably be completely useless by now. Maybe not, maybe that’s a _part_ of it, but that’s not the whole reason, is it?”

“I have no—”

“That was a rhetorical question, Dr. Markinson,” Misha said, cutting him off. “No there’s something more. You want us to remember because of something bigger. You want use to remember because—” Misha leaned forward, sliding towards the edge of the bench until he was invading Dr. Markinson’s personal space. “You’re scared. You’re _still_ scared, of me. Of us. You want us to remember so you can see if the virus is still affecting our brains. You want to know if we’ll, what, defend our actions if we can remember them? To know if we’ll see things from your point of view? That’s it, isn’t it,” Misha added with growing certainty. “You don’t know if you can trust us. You won’t ever be sure until you can get us to _remember_ , so you can be sure we’ve turned out the way you wanted!” Misha was leaning so far forward he was almost standing.

Dr. Markinson was leaning back, looking distinctly uncomfortable and sneaking glances over his shoulders every chance he could get. “You. There is an element of truth to your deduction. After a manner of speaking we are concerned about how you will view your memories if you are able to access them.” Misha could tell right then Dr. Markinson was holding something back, but he really wasn’t sure what, but Misha knew beyond a doubt he’d hit the heart of the matter. No matter how hard he worked, or how hard he tried, they were never going to trust him. He might be _cured_ , but he would always be tainted.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but that night he had the first dream.

~~~

**December 2014—Aurora City, Aurora**

Each night when he dreamed, Jensen returned to that ship with its viewport looking out at the black expanse of deep space, the distant pinprick of stars the only light. He was always alone, one man on a giant ship with only his reflection for company. And there was never anything to see. Blue-white stars were glittering jewels before him, but they never moved, and they never changed, and there was nothing else around. No planets, no nebulae, not even a wayward comet making its solitary trek towards a distant star. Just light year upon light year of emptiness.

The tableau was familiar—he used to escape here long ago, back before he’d ever heard of ORDA or had an inkling aliens existed in fact as well as fiction—back when he’d had a husband, a job, and a home on Earth. But why was he coming back here now, after so many years, as he lay in his bunk on the _Fropashna_? Why did the dream follow him? Jensen could recall having the same somnolent reflections on the rare nights he was home on Aurora. His mind was drawing him here, but why? 

The scene was sterile aside from the stars and his insubstantial reflection in the viewport. The air was tasteless and odorless lacking even the faint dusty tang of air ducts or the vague, tell-tale aluminum odor many life support systems lent to the air they created. The deck was utterly silent, too. Not even the familiar hum of realspace engines or the rumble of thrusters punctuated the stillness. It was as if the ship itself was a construct on the edge of oblivion. While Jensen was perfectly aware this was a dream, _his_ dream, he couldn’t fathom why his mind was creating such an unreal dreamscape one step away from sensory deprivation.

Confusion aside, Jensen began to look forward to his dreams. The ship in his mind was lonely, but it was also peaceful. Here there was no war, no battles, no life-or-death decisions, and no disruptions. Jensen was alone, and for the first time in years, he felt able to just think, reflect, and relax. Maybe that was why he kept coming here… But Jensen couldn’t shake the feeling something was pulling him here, an invisible hand guiding his way. But what or _who_ wanted him there remained to be seen.

~~~

**January 2015—ORDA Medical Facility, Texas, Earth**

Misha rapped his knuckles against the molding surrounding the open door. “Dr. Hanniger,” he began, prompting the doctor to look up from the tablet she was holding, “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?”

She seemed to mull the question over for a few moments, but her expression was a little distant, so Misha couldn’t be quite sure. She might just have been still focused on whatever it was she’d been doing before he’d interrupted.

“Of course,” she said, a little stiltedly, as if her concentration still wasn’t quite all there. “Pardon my distraction, but we’re in the middle of quarterly reporting season, I’ve a list of reports as long as my arm that need to be finished, and the brass is pressuring me to get an article finished for confidential peer review.” She scoffed, “And to think I honestly believed I’d be getting away from the ‘publish or perish’ mindset by working in government. If I ever meet that career adviser again, I will surely share a piece of my mind.” She stopped rambling more abruptly than she had started, set the tablet down on top of a somewhat precarious stack of printed reports and open 5-inch, 3-ring binders, and looked at Misha expectantly.

“I was going to say I had no idea there was such a thing as confidential peer review, but I think I might be remembering that now.” The smile that spread across his face was as genuine and casual as the truth behind his humor. 

For a moment, Dr. Hanniger just scrunched up her face and stared, but then she visibly relaxed, and returned the smile. “Ah, that’s a reference to your past as a scientist, and a joke. Good one.”

“May I come in?” Misha was starting to feel a little self-conscious standing there in the hallway.

“Yes, of course.” The doctor began rummaging around on the tall desk that doubled as a lab table. It took Misha a minute to realize, but she appeared to be clearing a space.

“You don’t have to--” he started to protest.

This just seemed to make Dr. Hanniger more flustered. She jogged off towards the back wall of the lab, heels clattering noisily as she ran and returned a moment later with a tall stool. “Nonsense.” She dismissed Misha’s objection with a wave of her hand. “You shouldn’t be on your feet for so long. I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” An embarrassed blush spread across her cheeks. “How are you doing, anyway, with the standing and walking? I probably should know, but to be honest, with so many patients, and so many of us doctors each with our own little area of expertise, we have a tendency to get a bit... myopic.” She gestured to the stool and moved to take a seat in an identical stool on the other side of the table.

Her awkwardness and absentmindedness tickled the foggy reaches of Misha’s memory. He hadn’t known Dr. Hanniger before, but she reminded him of someone, or maybe several someones, who he had known, maybe quite well. Intrigued, he set aside the revelation to examine it later, when he had the mental resources and privacy to devote to it. He also decided to ignore the nagging doubt that she wasn’t quite being honest about not knowing how he was doing. 

“I’m actually doing much better. The dizzy spells are almost gone, I’m getting stronger, and Tracee, my Physical Therapist, says I’m cleared to be on my feet pretty much all day--well I’m supposed to take a break every eight hours, but that seems pretty reasonable.” Misha looked down at his clasped hands where they rested against his waist and scrunched up his nose as he realized something unexpected, “Although, I guess from what I’ve been told, I used to do a lot more than that.” He couldn’t suppress a little chuckle. It was hard to imagine himself going on days, weeks, even months-long missions. Slogging through mud and ash and soupy air on planets he no longer knew the names of and couldn’t really imagine, going days without sleep or real food or even a proper place to sit down, let alone a bed. Had that really been him--was it even possible? Maybe it had been whatever the virus had done to him, because he wasn’t really sure he had it in him to do that, to be that kind of person, giving orders even. “I guess I’m not quite up to field duty fitness,” he admitted.

“No, but I dare say you’ve made remarkable progress so far. Better than many of us had expected.” The frown that crossed Dr. Hanniger’s face told Misha she hadn’t meant to say that. “I mean--” she stammered blushing with awkward embarrassment again.

Misha held up a hand to stop her. “It’s all right, believe me, you’re not the first doctor to impress on me just how little you guys knew about what this treatment would have on someone with as advanced case of the disease as I had. I guess I’m just grateful to be alive and have my mental faculties mostly intact.” He smiled sincerely, “I guess I want to thank you for taking a chance on me.”

The expression that drifted across Dr. Hanniger’s face was hard to read. It wasn’t the same embarrassed blush that seemed to be her stock response to everything else he’d said. There was something more, something, darker, it pinged a place deep inside Misha’s psyche he didn’t recognize, but it, that place, recognized the doctor’s reaction as dark and sinister. He tried to brush the sensation away, but it left him feeling unsettled.

“It--it was a team effort, not all me. I mean it wasn’t my decision... Not that I didn’t think it was worth taking a chance on you, I just mean... Oh bugger that’s not what I mean. Just don’t thank me yet, you’re not fully recovered.” Now Dr. Hanniger seemed embarrassed again. It was such an abrupt change, it made Misha wonder for the first time if the persona Dr. Hanniger allowed her patients to see was _real_.

Still, it almost seemed like the Doctor was flirting with him, and however misguided that might be, it made Misha smile. “Will it make you feel better if I add the addendum the ‘thank you’ is for the whole team, with the caveat I may withdraw the thanks if I’m not ultimately satisfied with my recovery?”

“Yes, actually that’s much, much better?” Her face almost beamed with the relieved smile she gave Misha, and he wondered if he’d misread her a minute ago. “Can I interest you in a cup of tea? I have the bloody awful decaffeinated kind that’s not actually so bad. At least it’ll not upset your biochemistry--or my colleagues.”

“Tea would be nice,” Misha agreed.

“So what was it you wanted to ask me about?” She said as she returned with the tea. It was far more elaborate than Misha had expected--two small teapots, milk, cream, sugar cubes, a few packets of artificial sweetener--the green and yellow kinds--a small bowl of lemon slices, and two cups. “My colleagues make fun of how stereotypical I am, but I need a little familiarity, a comfort of home, or I’d lose my mind.” She glanced at Misha over the rim of her teacup. “I’ve not been with the program that long, only a little over a year. The--alienness--of it all still gnaws at me after a while.” 

Her gaze turned expectant, and it took Misha a moment to realize she’d asked him a question.

“I’ve been having these dreams, and I can’t tell if they’re just dreams, or if they’re really memories.”

Dr. Hanniger took a long sip of tea before setting down her cup on the matching saucer that rested on the tray.

White with an elaborate raised design along the edge of the handle and around the rim, the cup and tea service were incongruous in the sterile whitewashed walls of the lab. Misha had a momentary flash--a memory or an echo of a memory, the faint whisper of ghosts. A room, a lab, with grey concrete walls and pipes and black-topped lab benches and he was sitting on a stool beside it, clustered around a laptop screen with two other people-- _Jensen_ and a doctor, so very, very different from Dr. Hanniger or any other doctor here. A flash then gone, but it brought with it an overwhelming sense of comfort and home, tinged with a hint of melancholy longing that still left a smile upon his lips after it was gone.

“Dreams _can_ be a way for your mind to process memories. It could be you are accessing memories in your sleep or it could be your subconscious processing and interpreting those memories, or they might not be memories at all.” She frowned, “You know, Dr. Markinson is much better qualified to answer your questions than I am. My specialties are in genetics and virology, but you know that, so why come to me?”

“It’s the subject of the dreams. It’s related to your area of expertise... And it--conflicts with everything I’ve be-- everything I’ve learned since I regained consciousness. So I don’t know if it could be a memory or what that means if it is.” Misha hoped he didn’t look as nervous as he felt, nor was he 100% sure why he felt that nervous, but his body responded with fear no matter how hard he tried to be rational. He took a long sip of the decaffeinated tea, smarting when it scalded his tongue. He decided it needed more lemon and distracted himself with squeezing a wedge into the cup as he waited for Dr. Hanniger’s response. 

“All right, I’m listening,” she said solemnly after draining her teacup and pouring another.

“A lot of the details of the dream are vague. I don’t have a clear recollection or understanding even of where I was or what I was doing or who I was with. Sometimes--I think my husband was there in some of the dreams, and other people. People I don’t recognize and haven’t seen around. They could be real; they could be figments of my imagination.” Misha shrugged. “I don’t know, and it’s really not important to what I’m asking.” He paused to gauge the doctor’s reaction.

She wasn’t giving anything away and looked more curious than apprehensive or disapproving.

“The one thing that’s always crystal clear, that I remember when I wake up, is what we were talking about, what I knew.”

“And what was that,” Dr. Hanniger asked in a tone she probably hadn’t used since her psych rotation.

“We’re talking about M-- people like me,” Misha pointed his thumbs back at himself wondering why he’d hesitated to use the word he’d clearly used in his dreams, but he knew it was the right call and hoped he hadn’t let too much slip.

The doctor nodded in understanding and continued.

“In the dreams, they--we talk about it like it’s some kind of heritable genetic mutation that’s passed on from generation to generation, not a virus, or at least not an ordinary one. I mean, it was still the result of alien genetic engineering, or at least some people thought it might be, and there were still people who were exposed to something that could... alter them make them like me, us, but... But it wasn’t a virus, or at least not one that was easy to transmit. It was like you had to come in contact with something very specific and very rare in order to be... altered.”

“You mean infected.”

Confusion flitted across Misha’s face. “See, that’s the thing, it wasn’t an infection, more like a mutation. And sex... sex wouldn’t have passed it on, but you could pass it to your child. I think I even dreamed they couldn’t get a clear picture of what caused the mutation or how it worked because every time they tried to analyze a sample, it self-destructed, like it was protected somehow, and tamper-proof.” Misha took another sip of his tea feeling like a fool now those words were out of his mouth. “I guess that last part sounds like I’ve got a very creative imagination, doesn’t it.”

If the sour lemon face Dr. Hanniger was making was anything to go by, Misha got the sense he’d just made a big fool of himself for discussing the contents of his dreams. At least if he’d gone to Dr. Markinson he would have been very gentle and nonjudgmental. He probably would have told Misha he was “hiding in his dreams” or that his “subconscious was processing his need to rationalize and justify his actions and choices while infected through imaginative and vivid dreams.” Dr. Hanniger had none of the professional gloss of a therapist and couldn’t hide her reactions very effectively.

“Sorry--” Misha started, but the doctor set down her tea and shook her head.

“No, that’s not what I was thinking. I--like I said, I haven’t been with the program for very long. I was brought in only after the Council agreed the virus was a pandemic. There was a huge power shift. The planet was almost destroyed because infected people were making decisions, in charge, and all the while no one realized they were playing right into an alien plot. Our enemies thought they could conquer the world from the inside, and we will probably never know how close they came.” She sat up straight in her chair and rested her forearms on the stack of papers in front of her. “Misha, those dreams very well could be memories. That--” she held up one hand to forestall the possibility of interruption, “--that’s not to say any of that is true. Trust me when I say HT7 beta is a virus, a very contagious, insidious virus, but _not_ an endogenous retrovirus, which is what it would have to be to cause changes in your germ cells to mutate.” She paused and looked at Misha skeptically again a little flustered. “If mutations from a virus were capable of being passed onto offspring, that’s what it would be.”

Misha nodded. He’d understood her the first time.

Dr. Hanniger continued, “However, I have no clue what you might have been told before the plot was uncovered and the extent of the infection discovered.”

“Are you saying they misunderstood how the virus worked and how it was transmitted or that they lied to us?” Misha felt sick, betrayed, disgusted. His heart was suddenly pounding in his chest and the sound seemed to go quiet and mute before his ears filled with a high-pitched whine. It was difficult to breathe. Blood pounded in his temples and the world was filling with black splotches and going fuzzy around the edges. This was what betrayal felt like.

“Misha!” Dr. Hanniger’s left hand shot out and encircled his wrist. “Bloody hell, your pulse is racing, and you’re sweating... Look at me. You need to breathe, slowly. Deep breaths, you’re hyperventilating,” she looked completely flummoxed and began to paw around trough the precarious stacks on the table as if looking for something. “Bollox, there must be a bag around here somewhere.” She started to stand. “Hang on.”

Like a switch flipping into place, the pressure on his chest and pounding in his head stopped, and he could hear again. His vision was clearing and he knew with utter certainty not just _how_ to control his breathing, but that he _could_ , and he was already doing it before he realized it. “No!” he exclaimed as his left hand shot out and closed around the doctor’s wrist. Surprised, he let go as if burned. 

Dr. Hanniger froze and looked back at him with confusion and, if he was honest, a hint of trepidation. 

“I’m sorry. I just mean,” he flapped the hand that had grabbed her in front of his face, “I’m fine, or I’m gonna be fine. Feeling better. I--I was just surprised at how, how betrayed I felt,” he spluttered. “I’m going to be okay though. You don’t have to...”

“Are you sure?” Dr. Hanniger sounded skeptical. She cocked her head to side and gave him an appraising glance, “Well you do seem to be breathing a lot better.” She sat back down hard, seeming a bit defeated. “Look, Misha, I don’t know if they were intentionally misleading you or if they genuinely misunderstood the virus. What you dreamed might be exactly that, a dream. But, it could also be a memory. I wouldn’t want you to dismiss it because it sounds implausible, just don’t try to force it.”

“You mean don’t try so hard to ‘remember’ that I start fabricating memories?” Misha asked, feeling strangely relieved.

“Yes.” Dr. Hanniger hesitated and bit her lip. It seemed like there was something more to say.

“Can I ask... If it was a memory, do you think--do you think they lied to us, or just didn’t understand?”

“I don’t know.” Dr. Hanniger leaned back in her stool.

“Would it be that easy to mistake?” Misha wasn’t a geneticist, but he seemed to have retained enough memories of organic chemistry to have the general impression it would have been difficult to confuse two such widely divergent stories.

The doctor sighed. “Maybe, maybe not. The old administration worked on this project for over a century and a lot of the records didn’t survive. I’m not sure when they worked out any of the genetics on the virus. It could have been a story that was so widely believed or accepted by those in control, of which a majority were infected individuals most of whom weren’t carriers, but had active infections, that no one in command would have accepted science to the contrary. Or they might have suppressed new information when the research bore an unexpected answer--it might have been more for troop morale than an outright desire to deceive. It’s also possible the upper echelons of command didn’t know.”

That had Misha jerking in his seat in surprise. “Didn’t know?” 

“The doctor who did the most extensive research on HT7 alpha’s genetic structure, symptoms, and transmission vectors was a geneticist ORDA recruited right out of an M.D./Ph.D. program. She practically grew up inside the program and was very heavily invested in it. Apparently she did all kinds of unsanctioned research and experimentation... _And_ she was so fascinated with the subject of her research, she secretly infected herself with an active strain.” The doctor shuddered so hard her knee bounced.

“She _what_?” Misha’s voice cracked. “You mean she was healthy and she made herself sick, knowing more than anyone about the virus and what it did?”

“Positively insane, and therein lies our problem. We’re left dealing with the ramblings of a madwoman,” was Dr. Hanniger’s exasperated reply.

“But surely someone must have known. How--ORDA was a top-secret organization then, too, right? How could someone not know,” Misha wondered aloud.

The look Dr. Hanniger leveled at him was unsettling and unreadable. “It’s possible her commanding officer knew and turned a blind eye, or she may have had help from someone else outside the upper echelons of command. She might have just been that good. The problem is most of the people who might have known were themselves infected and either died in the attempted uprising, didn’t survive treatment, or--”

“Survived and have memory problems,” Misha supplied.

“Precisely. Either way, there were lots of reasons why you might have been told the story you recalled in your dream. Infected individuals had abilities that were attractive and valuable, arguably vital to the organization. The destructive effects of the disease weren’t appreciated until very recently.” Dr. Hanniger took another long sip of tea and regarded Misha silently, her head cocked to one side, eyebrow raised. At last she asked, “If given the choice, would you rather be infected with a viral disease, or have an unusual genetic mutation?”

“I see your point,” Misha acknowledged, unable to suppress the shudder that ran through him. Justified or not, it still felt like betrayal. On the other hand if those in command just hadn’t understood, especially because some rogue doctor was keeping secrets from them, it was sad. Maybe if someone had known sooner, more lives could have been saved. But... “I suppose even if they knew, but they didn’t know how to cure the disease or replicate the side effects they wanted without all the horrible symptoms, it makes a sick sort of sense,” he mused aloud. “But why tell us it was heritable?”

“Any number of reasons. Heritability may have been an assumption since most infected individuals produced infected offspring, when in reality the virus was being transmitted during childbirth. If they knew, they might have told the lie anyway because infected individuals were valuable,” Dr. Hanniger speculated.

“And if they told us we had a sexually transmitted disease... Well most people wouldn’t run out and have unprotected sex, so there wouldn’t be any new carriers for the program.” Misha shuddered again. “That’s sick.”

“Bear in mind they very well may have believed they were spreading an innocuous disease. Or... Your dreams might be dreams and the unsettling ethical questions you now ponder could be worst-case scenarios concocted by your imagination or the result of your subconscious trying to process guilt or self-disgust... But those are questions you will need to explore with Dr. Markinson because they are far outside my area of expertise.” She spoke with a note of finality that signaled the conversation was over.

“I will,” Misha agreed. “Thank you for indulging my curiosity... and paranoia, and thanks for the tea.” He stood and extended his right hand.

“You are welcome, Misha,” she said shaking his hand. “I’ll be checking up on you now, so when I next speak to Dr. Markinson, I’d better not find out you’ve kept this from him,” she warned.

“Understood.” Misha thanked her again and exited the lab. He felt weary and exhausted, his body clumsier and heavier than it had seemed in weeks. Part of him wanted to believe the dreams were just dreams, but he couldn’t shake the feeling they were real, and the harder he tried to dismiss them, the more real and certain they felt. Only that wasn’t it. With every step a growing feeling of wrongness, a tingling in that spot deep inside he couldn’t quite identify, overcame him. Lies. Something Dr. Hanniger said was a lie. The pieces didn’t add up. He wasn’t sure where the error was, but he knew it was out there. But _why_ would she lie? Did she know it was a lie? And where did the lies stop? 

Misha shivered and went off in search of Dr. Markinson. Maybe he’d have a different perspective (and a lighter mood) after a session.

~~~

**February 2015—Aurora City, Aurora**

Seeing them together, all the happy couples joyous at their reunion, celebrating, enjoying each others’ presence with gentle touches and meaningful glances--it made Jensen _ache_ for Misha with an acute intensity he hadn’t felt in the nearly two years (Earth years, anyway) since Misha had been lost. The longing and loss combined with his shocked realization it had been so long already, and he flinched, forced to look away from Jared and Gen who were currently wrapped around each other in a frantic embrace. He caught Tony’s eye as he turned, and saw the understanding in his eyes. Jensen gave him a little nod of acknowledgment and continued turning away from the gathered crowd. His movements flowed seamlessly into a stride, so much he almost convinced himself he’d been intending to walk away, leave the elevated courtyard for some space, air. 

His strides grew more confident and sure as he crossed the walkway to the heavy glass door and opened it. He continued into the council chamber with its mix of stone and glass and wood construction that reminded him of the people it served--a mix of Naiians and humans who’d made Aurora their home before the war, Naiians and humans from Earth, and assorted other refugees and friends all living together, not in perfect harmony, but cooperatively, respectfully, dedicated to making this world, this society, work. His chest felt lighter, his breathing easier, with every step he took across the broad chamber. Before he realized his intent, he was already exiting the other side, pulling the door shut behind him and stepping out onto the smaller exterior balcony that wrapped its way around the building’s 25th story.

Jensen let out a long sigh, his voice echoing in the fragrant night air. With unhurried steps he crossed to the balcony railing, dropping his elbows to its surface and looked out on the city around him. The sky was still purple and orange with the last hues of the setting sun. The ancient domes and towers covered in pastel and earth-toned (he laughed at the iron) stone reached into the sky all around. This place was so unlike earth, but in the last few years, it had become familiar, home. The interior courtyard with its tall trees, broad suspended walkways, and building façades formed from natural materials reminded him of the fictional world Kashyyyk, while out here with the balconies and sky and spires straining for the heavens he could imagine himself in the world of the Prince of Persia games... Only it was all too real, the gravity just a little lighter than Earth norm, the atmosphere a little heavier and more fragrant, the color of the sky at midday tending towards plum instead of cerulean. The humidity always _felt_ different too, in a way that was hard to describe. The air didn’t flow quite the same way as on Earth, damp air was more noticeable, but less oppressive. In many ways Aurora was more suited for Naiians’ biochemistry than was Earth, yet it was still well within human tolerances. It made the guilt Jensen felt over separating so many from their home--their homeworld--fractionally easier to bear. But no matter how suitable Aurora was or how breathtaking the architecture, or how familiar it now was, it wasn’t Earth. It wasn’t the home they’d always known and were forced to leave behind.

A little voice in the back of his mind that still--and would probably always--compared real life to science fiction could make any number of analogies to characters displaced by war or circumstance to have to forge a new home. _Was this what the Vulcans in the reboot had felt like?_ Only, no, their entire planet had been gone, and he’d stopped that from happening to Earth.

But Earth, and its inhabitants, were as lost to Jensen and every other Naiian as if the planet had been destroyed. As it stood now, and would perhaps always stand, any Naiian who managed to set foot on Earth or any human-controlled planet would be summarily arrested and either killed on sight or disappeared to face life-long imprisonment and experimentation or the identity-stripping deconversion “cure” that allegedly turned Naiians into humans, regardless of their heritage or origin. It was impossible. They couldn’t go back. But...

He straightened up, gripping the railing with his hands until his knuckles turned eerie white, shocking against the pearlescent, greenish pewter metal of the railing. _But..._ Somehow they had to go back. No matter the cost, no matter the risk, they had to find a way. There were still Naiians on Earth. At last contact Nicki and Alona were still alive, still identifying and assisting other Naiians, helping them hide. Finding them, getting to them before the government, before ORDA did. They had to find a way back or give Nicki and Alona and the others a way off the planet.

He was failing them, failing them and he’d promised... _Fuck!_ He’d given Alona the nanolumes to protect her. He’d told her to use them only if ORDA came knocking, but he’d promised they would keep her safe, give her more options, ensure she stayed with Nicki. He let out a bitter, derisive snort. Well, he’d been right on one count. Now that she and Nicki were both Mar-- He stopped himself and cringed at the mental slip-up. He hadn’t used the _human_ word for their people in nearly two years. The slip was a testament to his mental state. His guilt.

_It’s not your fault Jensen. There’s no way you could have known what would happen. And you did give them more options. ORDA would have disappeared Alona long before Earth turned on us. And it was their choice to stay. Honor that._

Jensen flinched as he tried to shake off the voice in his head. His conscience always sounded like Misha these days. It was a source of joy and amusement and unending sorrow. Loss bled anew each time he thought of Misha, sometimes it was accompanied by anger--a furious commitment to make things right, avenge the atrocity. Other times, like now, the pangs softened with fond nostalgia. He wondered what Misha would do, what great idea he would have.

Because Jensen’s fault or not that Nicki and Alona were now both Naiian, he still had to find a way to get them and their charges off Earth. Someone had to go back. With Earth’s crackdown in place there was no way Nicki or Alona could safely get off the planet, not even if they both had symbiotes or some other sort of WMD. 

To be fair, they could both open a wormhole big enough for them and many others to leave, but within seconds the unauthorized wormhole would be detected and their location would be swarming with ORDA and allied troops. The cat and mouse game that would follow would be long, harrowing, and almost impossible to win. 

The latest intel the Fropali had provided suggested ORDA’s tracking tech was now so good they could follow a near infinite number of wormholes and track any present Naiians on the other side. If they had a reason to look, they would, and they would find them... Nicki and Alona and anyone with them would light up like a Christmas tree on their sensors. Worse, the dampening and jamming tech Jared had nearly died to obtain was being used to block off even more avenues of escape. By interdicting travel along the easiest paths of escape, and using the tracking technology to predict what those would be, ORDA could prevent a fleeing Naiian from opening up a default wormhole, thus adding precious seconds to the transit time and hobbling their escape. 

The more concentration a wormhole required, the more precise the dial in, the more likely ORDA would catch up before they even left and everyone would get caught. Even the old-school last resort--jumping to an inhospitable planet--was unlikely to work. Jensen had a half-dozen credible reports (two accompanied by video) detailing the new Envirosuits or E suits ORDA operatives were wearing. There was undoubtedly some environment those suits couldn’t handle for some amount of time, but chances were the Naiians would wear out long before the suits did. 

Besides, that kind of escape plan would spell certain death for any humans Nicki and Alona tried to evac. And they could never get everyone out in one wormhole. 

Nicki and Alona needed help, and Jensen had to figure out how to get it to them or the fate of all those Naiians still trapped on Earth would be on his head.

Jensen wasn’t surprised when Katie joined him about a half-hour later. He’d felt her concern and awareness buzzing in the back of his mind ever since he slipped outside. She didn’t say anything, and for that he was grateful. She just glided out onto the elevated terrace and joined him in silent contemplation of the purple sunset, vibrant hues, impossible on earth, seeming to swirl across the sky before them as Edolas, the star Aurora orbited, inched towards the horizon. She was waiting, patient, understanding in a way few did that Jensen would speak if he needed to when he was ready, respecting that sometimes he needed to verbalize concepts to make them _real_ , even though he didn’t necessarily need to speak to communicate.

“This place reminds me of cross between Coruscant, Kashyyyk, and the Prince of Persia--the PS 2 games not the old stuff or the crappy movie,” he confided. It’s all balconies and terraces and elevated walkways, but the buildings are more ornate than futuristic... And the foliage it’s so...”

“Lush,” Katie supplied. Jensen watched as she reached out and rubbed a purple-blue leaf, the places she touched turning ruddy in her fingertips’ wake.

“Yeah.” 

“Are you thinking about Misha? Or Earth?” she asked.

“Both?” Jensen admitted to his own surprise. “When am I ever not?”

“Hmm,” Katie murmured. 

“It’s just that sometimes I get so frustrated,” Jensen said, slamming his fist down on the railing. “There’s so much I want to share with him, so much I want him to see. We’ve built something spectacular here, it’s totally unexpected, and it’s nothing like Earth, but it’s beautiful and it works... And I just want to show it to him, see what he thinks.” He took in the green-tinged purple twilight the great expanse of ancient buildings merging with new construction interspersed with treetops extending on to the horizon. He leaned down on one elbow and glanced over his shoulder at Katie. “I used to think I was looking for approval,” he gave a one-shouldered shrug, “maybe I was.”

“But not now,” Katie said as she stepped forward, joining Jensen at the railing. Standing straight and tall next to it, hips flush to the broad wooden surface, hands resting lightly, framing her, the rays of the setting sun casting her blonde hair in greens and golds and fiery reds, she looked like a statue, a regal, otherworldly sculpture. Maybe it was appropriate.

“Now I just want to share, because I think he would have liked it here, and because he’ll probably always be one of the most important people in my life.” Jensen gave her a melancholy smile. “I still reach for him sometimes,” he turned back to look out over the city, “a lot more than I’d like to admit, at least once a day.” He glanced at Katie to gauge her reaction, but her expression gave nothing away. “Sometimes reaching and finding nothing, it hurts. Feels like losing him all over again. But other times, just touching it, knowing that place is still there, it keeps me together. It’s like no matter what happens or how much the universe changes, no matter how much _I_ change, there’s tangible proof my time with him, my old life, wasn’t a dream. Sometimes it reminds me I’ve gotta keep going or I’m giving up on everything he sacrificed his life for. Sometimes it just reminds me I was loved.” His voice cracked a little, and he hoped Katie didn’t notice the tears.

“There are still plenty of people who love you.” As she spoke, Katie pushed back from the railing and turned around, leaning back and looking up at the climbing towers of the central building.

“So,” Jensen began schooling his voice. He was aiming for jovial and conspiratorial, but it came out a little forced. “Harris and Roberts, how long has that been going on?”

“Hah!” Katie scoffed. “That is so like you. Change the subject whenever you get the slightest bit uncomfortable--”

“I’ll have you know that was way beyond _slightly_ uncomfortable, and I bear my soul all the time,” he countered, wagging one finger back and forth. “Well, to you, anyway.”

~~~

**March 2015—Aurora City, Aurora**

Jensen’s eyes snapped open. He was surrounded by black, only there was a blue glow permeating everything. He couldn’t really _see_ it, but he knew it was there. He was lying, no _floating_ suspended in air on something soft yet fluid—he’d think it was water or gel, but it was perfectly dry. No, not _dry_ but insensate. There was no texture, no temperature, it was as if his physical being was translating thought into reality.

“I’m dreaming,” he said aloud. And for the first time in his dream, there was sound. It was true, this was the dream. The blueness to the black seemed to resolve itself into the blue-white glow of distant stars and the bed—not bed _place_ on which he was lying was surrounded by the empty deck facing the viewport looking out at space. 

He wanted to stand, and discovered he could move, only his movements felt unreal, fluid, as if he was experiencing everything through a haze. He was clothed—wearing some sort of white pyjamas or scrubs he’d never seen before. The fabric was smooth and crisp, but soft, not coarse. It was cool against his skin, every place where his bare skin touched the fabric, he was acutely aware of its presence. It didn’t chafe, but rustled when he moved—a faint brushing sound that would make it very difficult to move—sneak—around unnoticed. The garments were so white they seemed to glow in the starshine. Purity—no, sterility. His clothes would be suited to a hospital—the sort where people went to die or were kept against their will and the highlight of one’s day was walking in an idyllic garden, controlled and perfect to its creators, it oozed fakeness and deceit to those penned in by its invisible walls. 

_Grey-white walls, reminiscent of ORDA’s main complex only brighter, and _lighter_ —not just in tone, but in _feeling_. The air wasn’t as heavy or confined because he wasn’t underground. Hallways stretching out in every direction forming a maze or rabbit warren, each hallway studded with doors at regular intervals. These were locked, equipped with narrow panes of fireproof, unbreakable glass. These rooms were filled with the newly awakened; those too lost from their transformation to be trusted with any modicum of freedom. That way—toward the outside, where there were long bays of picture windows looking out on that too-green garden, were the rooms with doors that opened. The ones patients could lock and open at will—the ones where they tricked the recovering—twisted their memories and warped their sense of self until it was honed and twisted to suit their will._

Jensen wobbled on his feet, unsure what had just happened. That didn’t _feel_ like a dream, and he certainly didn’t recognize the place. It was on Earth—he could tell by the taste of the air, the precise mix of oxygen and nitrogen, the pressure the atmosphere exerted on him, and most of all, from the distinctive whiff of mass-produced chemical disinfectant—a scent he’d found nowhere but on Earth. But he had no sense of _where_ it was, or why he was seeing it. He was certain he’d never been there. It could have been an ORDA facility. Indeed it had a distinctly _military_ vibe—one Jensen knew all too well from so much time spent in military hospitals. There was an _edge_ and an urgency about them as well as a sterile efficiency that were never present in civilian hospitals. It was possible it was some sort of long term psychiatric institution, but that didn’t seem to fit. Even if it was, he had never been to a psych ward remotely reminiscent of the place he’d just saw—no _been_.

That was it—he hadn’t _seen_ it, for a moment his consciousness had been there. A feat unto itself considering he was _dreaming_ , or at least he believed he was sleeping. Whatever was happening, his body may have been sleeping in his Spartan, but cozy, bunk on the _Fropashna_ , but a moment ago, his mind had been conscious and somewhere else entirely. Somewhere he had never been. 

“Memory transference?” he wondered, his voice echoing in the cavernous space of the empty deck. But no, it didn’t feel like a memory. It felt real, like he was connected to someone and sharing their experience. 

He took a few steps away from the not-bed thing where he’d been lying, chancing a look back to see what it was. The glowing blue rippling _pool_ that looked suspiciously a Stargate wormhole glowed back at him. Only it was lying on its side, hovering about a quarter meter off the deck. The pool was naked, no sign of a Stargate (or anything like it) surrounding it, the surface just ended in a glow so bright it was impossible to determine the shape or thickness of the edge. “Weird,” Jensen observed, shaking his head. He turned back to the viewport and shuddered.

Sharing consciousness wasn’t impossible, in fact for a Naiian it was quite possible. Only Jensen had only melded consciousness that seamlessly a few times in his life, and most of those occasions had been with Misha. The only other person he’d melded consciousness with was Katie, and they’d been in the same room, pressed back to back at the time. So, how could he be sharing consciousness with someone on Earth? Perhaps there was an extremely powerful telepath there, reaching out, looking for help and hir mind latched onto Jensen’s because he was also a powerful telepath and _sleeping_ , so he had fewer defenses and was more susceptible to a connection? He guessed it was _possible_ , but it seemed odd, improbable, especially at this distance. At the moment the _Fropashna_ was nowhere near Earth.

Brushing the thought aside, Jensen turned back towards the viewport and continued towards it. He didn’t know why, but he felt drawn to it. Something in the space beyond the invisible barrier was calling to him. As he moved, the ship around him seemed to become more real, more solid. The distant rumble of engines sent subtle vibrations through the deck, while the air began to move around him—it wasn’t a breeze, just the gentle current of circulating air. There was a faint hum coming from the forcefield reinforcing the viewport accompanied by an ionized tang. The pattern of stars seemed to shift and flicker with the distant orange glow of a planet appearing and the stars beginning to slide by outside. All the signs of life that had been missing from the dream in the past nights had appeared. 

“What’s going on here?” Jensen asked as he reached the viewport. His reflection stared back at him, more fully formed than ever before—only it wasn’t _his_ reflection. The image he saw was from an earlier time—his past life, Jensen the happily married attorney. He looked sad, but _hopeful_ somehow, his gaze seemed to be trying to tell him—present day him—something. 

“Oh,” Jensen exclaimed, realization dawning on him with a sudden rush of awareness. This dream had started as a daydream, and that was based off one of his favorite TV shows, and that had been a way for noncorporeal beings to communicate with the main character and steer him back on course… _What if my subconscious has been trying to get my attention, clue me in that someone is trying to give me a message?_

Footsteps, softer than his own, but still echoing in the empty bay, snapped Jensen out of his reverie. It was as if everything had been waiting in a holding pattern, needing him to put the pieces together before the dream could move any further, and now… 

Jensen whirled around—

Semi-transparent and surrounded by a misty glow, a figure strode towards him. Clad in an old-style ORDA field uniform and looking as young and whole as he had when Jensen first met him, _Misha_ crossed the bay towards him, stopping a meter behind him. “Hey.” Misha’s voice was airier than Jensen remembered, and echoing in a way that seemed incongruous with the shape of the space around him.

“How are you doing this? H—how is this possible—” Jensen stammered. Tears were already filling his eyes. It had been so long since he’d seen Misha, and the last time— “I never got to say goodbye. I was so, _mad_ at you for sacrificing yourself. When you went down, you were surrounded so fast, I couldn’t see your face, couldn’t look you in the eye. And then—I was seeing through your eyes.” _Until you cut me off, made me leave_ , he didn’t say. “Nothing ever hurt like that.”

“I know,” Misha’s voice said, echoing louder. He smiled, but his eyes were sad. He raised his hand as if to caress Jensen’s cheek, but stopped just short of touching. He stroked his hand along the line of Jensen’s face, and Jensen leaned into the phantom caress, imagining he could feel Misha’s touch, the warmth of his hand. “I miss you.”

Jensen mouthed the words back to him, too lost in the overwhelming rush of emotions to say the words aloud. Part of him was still so mad, but the rest of him was overwhelmed with the rush of happiness that flooded through him. He let himself get lost in the feeling, the memories, he let his consciousness spread out, expanding in a way it hadn’t in the years since Misha’s death. For so long he’d locked himself inside, only sharing and bonding with others when absolutely necessary. It was _unnatural_ for a Naiian to be so solitary, so isolated. It worried Katie, he knew; sometimes when she looked at him, he could feel her _fear_ for him, even without the benefit of telepathy. At first she had even feared Jensen still bought into the humans’ bigotry, wouldn’t open himself up because he still wanted to be _normal_. 

But now, for once, Jensen let it all go. For a few minutes in this dream he could imagine Misha was still alive, they were together, and everything was right in the world. He could take in the world around him without the pain and loss overwhelming him. It was a fantasy, but that seemed appropriate for how this dream had started.

After a few minutes passed and Misha still hadn’t spoken, Jensen roused himself. He lifted his head up and met Misha’s eyes.

Misha was still smiling, but this time it reached his eyes. 

“What is this, where are we?” Jensen asked. 

“This is your dream,” Misha replied. 

“I was so _angry_ for so long. I called you Spock. Why’d you have to go and sacrifice yourself, why does everyone else get to be happy and not me?” Jensen admitted, gesticulating wildly. He let out a long sigh, wiping his eyes. “Sorry. I’m sorry… I understand, and I forgive you, and all that. It’s just been _so hard_ without you.”

“I need your help,” Misha answered, his expression growing serious.

“Are you a figment of my imagination, or is this an echo of you from my subconscious, some part of you I kept when you—” Jensen couldn’t finish the sentence. 

“I’m lost—” Misha said by way of response. “Jensen—I am trying to find my way back, but I don’t know where I am.”

“What—” Jensen began, eyes wide as the full-moon. “What are you saying?”

“I’m somewhere, but I’m not myself, it’s like I’m stuck, cut off, sometimes I have flashes of where I am, and everything’s all wrong, but the rest of the time… it’s like I don’t exist, until you dream, and then I can feel you. Even though I tried to break away, to cut you off, so you wouldn’t have to feel me die—it’s like I couldn’t quite leave you. And now, now you’re my way out, my way back, only I don’t know where I’m coming back from.”

~~~

**March 2015—ORDA Medical Facility, Texas, Earth**

The day Misha found answers started like any other. He was wandering about the halls of the hospital wing testing how far they’d let him go. It was lunch time, and the wing that housed a mix of labs and storage where the hospital connected to the base proper was almost deserted. He kept expecting a doctor, janitor, security guard, someone, to stop him, but no one noticed, and no one came.

He’d been wandering for almost a half hour when he heard the squeak of a janitor’s cart approaching. Thinking fast, he tried the nearest door and finding it open, slipped inside. It closed behind him with a squeak, and Jensen pressed himself against the wall, away from the windowed door, holding his breath. His heart hammered in his chest, but when a minute passed and no one came investigating, he started to calm down and take stock of the space around him.

It was a lab that appeared to be mostly used for storage. Boxes were stacked on the lab benches and littered across the floor. One wall was lined with bookshelves draped in a dust cover. The space spoke of disuse, which probably explained the lack of cameras anywhere obvious. 

Relieved, Misha was about to turn to go, when he noticed a computer monitor in one corner. Unlike everything else in the room, it wasn’t covered in dust. In fact, it was turned on. Curiosity getting the better of him, he approached. 

Not only was it turned on, but logged in and there was a folder open, a video player running in the background. Misha’s stomach flipped. He had a feeling this was a setup… the entire thing designed to corral him in hear, catch his attention, lure him in… but if there were no cameras and no guards… Was Agam trying to tell him something by showing him? Could this be one of her secrets that she’d finally found a way to share?

Unable to resist, he pressed “play.”

The video feed was in color, but somehow seemed so washed out, it was devoid of life, and might as well have been in black and white. Part of the effect undoubtedly came from the position of the camera—dead center in the ceiling, providing a bird’s-eye view, but no clue as to the occupants’ expressions. The lighting—strong fluorescents casting and eerie, green-tinge—was also partly to blame, but Misha couldn’t shake the feeling the real reason for the deadness and starkness of the image was the utter hopelessness of the situation it captured.

Two women sat in the room, one on either side of a utilitarian metal table. Misha couldn’t be sure, but he got the impression the table and matching metal chairs in which the two women were seated were bolted to the floor. The unnaturally large distance between both chairs and the table and the stiffness of the occupants’ postures certainly suggested it. More than that, it _seemed_ like the sort of setup where everything was bolted down, the place just screamed “interrogation room” to Misha. Maybe it was an association with half-remembered television dramas—although there was no one-way mirror—all the walls were grey cinderblock. And they were all conveniently captured by the camera thanks to bulbous mirrors placed in each corner.

Nevertheless, Misha was sure of the room’s purpose and certain its furnishings didn’t move. He also had the distinct impression it was deep underground, for no apparent reason except that it felt right.

The woman on the right of the screen had long dark hair pulled back into an intricate French braid. He would have guessed without the benefit of her uniform with her general’s insignia and before hearing her voice, it was General Bellman. Everything in her bearing screamed superiority and confidence. Her back was straight and tall, but she’d positioned herself in the chair so that she was leaning back slightly. Her hands with trim, well-manicured nails were resting almost demurely on her lap, while her legs were crossed gracefully at the knee. She gave off an aura of command that wordlessly communicated anyone crossing her would undoubtedly pay a hefty price.

The other woman had lighter hair—possibly sandy or auburn, although Misha couldn’t tell in the tape’s distorted lighting—and hung loose around her face. A short-sleeved orange jumpsuit and, from what Misha could see of her feet, slip-on tennis shoes were her only clothes, but she wore them like a uniform. Misha imagined he could see the medals that should have adorned her chest. He had no doubt the two figures were equals, no matter what their current circumstances indicated. Handcuffs bound the second woman’s wrists together and chained her to the table. Her knees were bent at unnaturally stiff ninety-degree angles precisely in line with the chair legs, suggesting her ankles were chained in place. Bruises and abrasions ran up and down her arms, and when she moved, Misha caught a glimpse of similar marks on her face and neck. _Burns_ , some of the reddish patches were actually burns, Misha realized. Whoever this person was she had been tortured. Yet defiance radiated from her, taunting her captor with every breath.

The room’s only door was partially visible behind General Bellman’s back, an imposing barrier of blue-grey steel with a small, reinforced, fireproof window. The room was otherwise devoid of decoration and the tale was empty, save for one thick, blue folder bearing a distinctive security stamp.

Misha couldn’t be sure, but the stamp felt familiar. He had undoubtedly known what it meant once upon a time, and even now, he thought it signified one of the highest, most sensitive security clearances.

The recording was silent for several minutes. If not for the faint woosh of air conditioning, Misha would have thought there was no audio. He kept watching because he couldn’t pull himself away. Deep down, Misha knew getting caught viewing this recording would be undoubtedly not good, but he also knew this was too important to _not_ take the risk. If for no other reason than his certainty he would be in trouble—no mortal peril—if discovered, he needed to find out what was on the recording. Would it validate his suspicions? Cast light on Agam’s conspiracy theory? Or would it prove his instincts were wrong?

Finally, the tension on screen broke. The prisoner shifted, leaning one shoulder back into the unmoving chair and doing a good impression of a casual slouch despite her restraints. “So _Gina_ ,” the name came out as a snarl, “how long have you been Fred Lehne’s lap dog?” She scoffed, shaking her head. “I thought you had more… taste than that.”

The camera angle didn’t allow Misha to see if General Bellman reacted to the verbal volley, but her voice, when she replied, had a gritty edge to it he hadn’t heard before. “I’ve never been Frederic’s _anything_. That incompetent bastard was a treasonous collaborating desk jockey who thought you and your _kind_ were unnatural, but his principles were just loose enough that he had no problem researching you to see what made you tick… in case it might _help_ him save his own ass.”

“You mean vivisecting. He repeatedly captured and experimented on live, sentient, sapient beings and kidnapped an ORDA officer to dissect his brain,” the prisoner exclaimed in disgust.

“A move your golden boy thwarted, if I recall,” Bellman replied, her tone disinterested, as if it were no big deal.

“It was his _husband_ , who was betrayed by his commanding officer,” the prisoner shot back, sending a chill down Misha’s spine.

General Bellman’s leg twitched and she sat up straighter. “And that was Lehne’s mess, not mine. He was an idiot; a fact he paid for with his life.”

“Then what’s going on here?” the prisoner asked, moving one hand in her lap, chains rattling as they clanged against the edge of the table. “If you weren’t working for Fred, then why am I here? What the hell is going on, and what do _you_ want?” She jerked the chain again. Perhaps it was frustration or an attempt to cross her arms, whatever the reason, the break in form seemed to be exactly what Bellman was looking for.

Bellman’s composure changed in an instant. Switch flipped, she leaned back again, cocking her head to the side, just far enough Misha caught a glimpse of the pleased, predatory smile spreading across her face. “I’m a bit disappointed in you,” she purred. “All this time, I thought you were genuinely intelligent, that you earned your rank and all the accolades that came with it by being every bit the genius the others made you out to be. Yet you’re so stupid you thought I was what? Weak? Malleable? Your ally? Really, Samantha, I’m disappointed in you.”

“Don’t call me that,” the prisoner protested icily.

“I’m sorry, Sam, is that better? See, you’re not really in a position to be making demands… or issuing orders,” Bellman replied. “For the record, I have _never_ been on your side. I’ve been in the program since I was 22 and fresh out of University. In my life until that point I had faced discrimination—no one wanted a _female_ engineer; it wasn’t ladylike to study warfare; god forbid a _woman_ want to fight in combat or be a leader. And all around me I saw the same—if it wasn’t sex, it was race, or class, nationality. Everywhere I turned people were being elevated, accelerated, given opportunities and power, not because of their merits or skill. And then ORDA comes knocking, and what do they want? Not my skill. Not my work ethic. Not even my intelligence. No, they wanted me because of my _genes_. My _potential_. They said I was a Marker, and I was special, and they told me my ancestors had probably been engineered by aliens, and I did not want to be that!

“I told them I wasn’t a monster. I didn’t want to open wormholes or be valued because of an accident of birth or something I’d _touched_. But here they were, elevating people because they’d come in contact with stupid glowing _nanolumes_ and had their DNA altered in the process!” Bellman answered, slamming her fist against the table.

On screen, Sam flinched, and Misha could see the exhaustion in the action. The way the lines of her body went taught, like she was a hairsbreadth from snapping and falling apart. Fine tremors shook her hands and arms, even with her wrists cuffed and wresting in her lap, she couldn’t keep the chains from rattling. “You never were a very good Naiian, Gina. It’s just too bad you also suck as a human being.”

“Insult me all you want,” Bellman retorted, composing herself. “You’re going to tell me how to get to Miradoma.”

“Or what?” Sam asked, defiant. 

“Tell me, and I’ll make sure your death is quick. Painless. I could even be persuaded to offer you the cure…”

“Cure?” Sam’s voice sounded disgusted, and she seemed to strain back in her chair, as if trying to get even farther from Bellman.

“Yes, a cure. My doctors have been working on it for ages, even before Fred Lehne’s obsession with your pet Ackles. Of course… the information he gathered certainly helped… and my Licinian friends helped to fill in the missing pieces. Now those of us who don’t want to be… abnormal, don’t have to be. We can be human. The way nature intended. The way I figure it, with the Licinian plot thwarted, we’ve outlived our usefulness. There’s just _no need_ to have a group of humans elevated above the others, running around with alien DNA.”

“You’re sick,” Sam whispered, voice shaking.

“No, but I’m afraid _you_ are,” Bellman replied. “Aaaah,” her voice went high and satisfied and she leaned back in the seat in a casual sort of sprawl that mad Misha’s skin crawl. “But you already know that—I assume you’ve been feeling the effects for quite some time. After all if the tremors have already started, organ failure’s not far behind. I’ve been told the pain is… unimaginable.”

“What—what did you do to me?” Sam asked.

“I didn’t do anything, just took away your WMD… or should I say… _symbiote_ as that pathetic misguided bitch Dr. Cassidy has taken to calling them.”

“What?” 

“You _bonded_ with it. It appears everyone who used actual _alien_ technology rather than the ORDA-designed alternative, has developed a physiological bond to their wormhole device. Take it away, and… eventually,” she leaned forward, “your bodies destroy themselves. Shutting down bit by bit. System by system.”

“No,” Sam hissed.

“You know I’m telling the truth, don’t you?” Bellman answered. “Something about those freaky senses you’re encouraged to cultivate.”

“You could have them too,” Sam tried.

“But I didn’t _want_ them. I just want to turn this organization into a _human_ organization, but instead I’m stuck with people like you, strung out like some kind of alien drug addict. Well, I don’t have _room_ for that kind of special treatment in the organization I’m building.”

“No,” Sam protested again. “There must be something—”

“What? Give you your WMD back? I don’t think so.” Bellman shook her head and stood, walking to the edge of the frame, where she turned back and looked over her shoulder at Sam. “You _will_ tell me how to find Miradoma. Otherwise, I’ll let you die. Naturally. Just like your precious Dr. Collins did—”

“No—”

“And General Peleggi, and Harris, Roberts—”

“No!”

“And who else, oh yes, Jensen.”

On screen Sam kept screaming in disbelief. Pleading with Bellman, but Misha was numb with shock. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t feel. He reached forward to stop the video and close the file and fell over. Landing on his hands and knees, elbows shaking.

Everything they’d said… It was just like Agam had hinted. Everything was a lie. They’d killed… He knew Sam, the woman on the video, someone he almost _remembered_ , was gone. He could feel it. She never would have cracked. Never would have taken another way out. And _Jensen_! Deep down he knew the Jensen they’d talked about was his husband. _So that’s how he actually died_ , Misha realized. _That’s why Agam told me not to feel guilty._

He was overcome with the sudden need to vomit, and the cold realization that if he did it here, he’d get caught and be in far, far worse trouble. Staggering to his feet, he managed to hold his breath until he made it to an eyewash station in the corner of the lab, where he promptly proceeded to puke so hard he thought he’d turned his stomach inside out. Activating the eye wash to cover his tracks he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and fell against the wall for support. 

He could feel them… memories half formed, things that almost made sense starting to coalesce into feelings, images, recollections. He hadn’t been sick. He hadn’t been infected with a bioweapon. He’d been himself. Normal. Healthy. Happy. Just not _human_ , and Bellman had stolen that from him. Stolen his life. His love. His friends. His career. Stolen _him_.

He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to get it back again. If he’d ever remember who he was or if the so-called “cure” could be undone, but in that moment he resolved to find a way to fight back and stop the genocide. He owed it to himself.

_I owe it to Jensen._

~~~

Two days later, Misha sighed as he sunk down beside the unused boiler, sweat from the too-warm room causing his thin scrub shirt to stick to his back and the wall behind him. He tucked his knees up to his chest, loosely wrapping his arms around them and shivering despite the oppressive heat. He hated it down here. It reminded him of something out of a bad horror movie, haunted by the ominous red glow of exit signs and emergency lights obscured and refracted by the maze of pipes conduits that raced along below the ceiling and in row after row throughout the claustrophobic space. Puffs of steam, the metallic clanging and banging of pipes, and the distant thrum of turbines combined with the temperature to create the perfect imitation of hell. Still, it was safer and more secure than the storage room in the east wing, and much less obvious than a strategically timed stroll out in the gardens.

Agam was already seated across from him, hiding her smaller frame behind the tangle of pipework and a portable workbench that was pushed up alongside it. Her body mirrored Misha’s; the line of tension in her jaw belying her relaxed pose. 

They sat that way for a few minutes, evaluating each other with wary glances as the silence grew, filling the confines of their hiding spot until it took up every last cubic centimeter, sucking out all the air and threatening to crush them in its wake.

“I—I don’t get it,” Misha admitted at long last. His confession seemed to shift the air around them, creating currents and tides that blew out the old, stagnant air, drawing fresh air in its wake, bringing precious oxygen to their lungs. 

Agam’s hands released from their clutch around her knees and slid down to rest on the floor by her sides. 

The action drew Misha’s attention to the feeling of the concrete beneath them, slightly cooler than the surrounding room, it drew him in, anchoring him, giving him a lifeline out of this hell. “I mean,” he continued, “on an intellectual level I understand. I know what’s happening,” he scoffed, eyes darting up to the ceiling in search of a higher power that was never there, never on their side, “what _has_ happened. I just don’t get how people can be so blind, so taken in. With the number of times this kind of shit,” he wouldn’t say the word, it wasn’t that not really, “has happened on Earth in the last century, you’d think people would be a little more suspicious, a little more—aware?” He shrugged. He thought for a moment Agam was speaking, had said “as if,” or something along those lines, but when his eyes snapped back to her, she was just as still and silent as ever. Still, Misha couldn’t shake the feeling, but he couldn’t allow himself to think about what that might mean. “This—” his hands cut across the air between them, “it’s not like it happened so fast there was plausible deniability until it was all over—it’s still going on.”

Agam’s gaze grew distant then more focused, seeming to look through Misha before looking at him, and this time, she did speak. “But it did,” she shrugged, “happen that fast. At least at first.” She scooted back, leaning into the pipes behind her. “Think about it, from what we’ve been able to figure out, ORDA was able to neutralize, imprison, or kill tens of thousands before _anyone_ had a clue what was going on. Even within the ranks, even among our people in their ranks, most of them were individuals who either had no ties outside ORDA or who had established covers that explained their disappearances.”

He thought about it, nodding his head in partial concession to Agam’s point. “I’ll give you that the initial stuff happened without the general public having a clue, but wasn’t that fast. The recording of General Ferris’ interrogation confirmed it could take weeks from the time they separated someone from their—device—” he hated knowing there _was_ a better word for it that he just couldn’t remember, “to when they died from withdrawal. And we know they didn’t run the _treatment_ ,” this time he shuddered at the inaccuracy of the words, “on everyone at the same time.”

“Well that’s kind of the point,” Agam replied.

Misha’s cocked an eyebrow in confusion.

“The way ORDA is set up, and the way they carried out their plan worked together to make the whole thing very fast, and very invisible. They didn’t _have_ to ‘treat,’” she made air quotes around the word, “everyone at once. They had a captive audience. Everyone who was the biggest threat—who knew or could easily figure out what they were planning was already under their thumb. You may not remember it Misha, but I’ve seen the way you act when any of the military people here give you an order.”

He flinched unsure he would like what Agam had to say about him.

She just smiled and continued. “It’s not a criticism or an aspersion on your character, Misha, just an observation. You _start_ to follow before you think or question. I’m not saying you _don’t_ think, it’s just that you were trained to obey, and it was hammered in time and time again, while you were shot at, stabbed, chased, bombed—there’s still a part of you that remembers or is starting to remember. You used to trust the orders ORDA gave you, because it could mean the difference between life and death for you and thousands, maybe even millions or billions, of people.” Agam stopped, rubbing frantically at her temple. Misha knew she was trying to ease the tension from the constant headaches that had been plaguing her lately. When the pained look around her eyes relaxed a little, she continued looking down at her hands where they were wrapped around her knees. “There are good reasons for those instincts, and most of the people like us, the ones who could have actually blown the whistle on what was happening, they had those same instincts. The same training. That let ORDA isolate them, incapacitate them, track them. By the time they would have known what was really going on, it would have been too late.”

It was true, and it made the sense of betrayal flare in Misha, burning up his chest, making him want to scream, rage, run, fight. The feeling was so strong he thought his vision might white out. He had trusted them. Part of him still did. He doubted the trust was always without reservation—he had pieced enough of ORDA’s history together at this point to know he likely always took certain orders with a grain of salt—but if following orders had been the thing to keep him alive, to keep others alive… How many of them had gone along with it, thinking they were protecting their own lives, maybe even saving others, only to be caged like animals, nonsentient beings led to the slaughter? But… “What about the others?”

“ORDA has the perfect cover. Think about it, a public health crisis that has the ability to affect people’s brain chemistry, make them do crazy things, make them susceptible to influence? Combine that with the constant fears of terrorism, pandemic flu, and the secretive and coercive legal tools many of the civilian governments already had at their fingertips, and you’ve got a recipe primed for compliance and easy disappearances. People were scared. People _are_ scared, and that fear makes everyone easy targets.” Agam looked up and met Misha’s eyes.

“You’re talking from experience.”

“What the fuck kind of journalism did you think I did before I got in here?” she asked, a bittersweet smile quirking the corner of her mouth. 

“Uh, my memory is still Swiss cheese?” Misha hedged defensively.

“I was a blogger and an investigative journalist.” She stared at a point over Misha’s shoulder like it held the answer to the meaning of the universe. “I worked for a lot of the progressive and environmental news organizations that get blacklisted, accused of being radical, anti-American, socialist and meant in a pejorative sense, that kind of thing. Everyone was paranoid about having their files destroyed, homes searched, and the thing was, it wasn’t without basis. Everyone knew someone who had been arrested, gotten fired, or their phones made weird clicking sounds. A few people even disappeared. It was hard talking to sources and even harder getting people to take us seriously, even when we were the only ones really digging into the facts. ORDA’s been able to capitalize on those same biases and fears.”

“If you knew the deck was stacked against you, why did you do it?” Misha asked.

Agam shrugged. “If we didn’t, then who would?


	5. Plotting Under Pressure

**April 2015—Aurora City, Aurora**

The party was really more of a ball. Something epic and unexpected and decidedly reminiscent of Earth… but yet oh so different. 

_Aldis_ had returned after almost two years spent searching, investigating, and exploring himself and the Naiian condition, he’d come home at last. He’d found, as he had hoped, a sect of Licinians who were sympathetic to the Naiians’ plight, and were willing to share their knowledge and understanding.

The Council seemed to think the party was a wonderful idea… well all except Jensen, but he kept his opinions to himself.

Of course, that was _before_ Aldis had sprung his idea—leading a mission to Earth _now_ on the council, which led to a meeting being set for the following morning and almost ensured a hungover and groggy Council. Jensen was willing to bet at least a few others were now rethinking the party.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Tony said, casting a sly grin at Jensen.

“What’s that?” he asked distractedly, his eyes following the young couple across the dance floor, taking in their joy as they laughed and fell into each other’s arms.

“I remember how _that_ felt,” was Tony’s reply.

That got Jensen’s attention. He tore his eyes away from the joyful lovers and turned his attention to Tony, whose eyes looked as melancholy as Jensen felt.

“It’s true.”

“For me too,” Tony’s smile grew wider. “Doesn’t matter how long it’s been, that’s a feeling you never forget.”

Jensen nodded, contemplative, and glanced back at the couple, in awe. “We were never that young.”

“No,” Tony said, seeming to agree, “we were younger.”

Jensen snorted, blinking back tears that came, unbidden, to his eyes. “Shoulda seen that one coming. I guess what, now we’re wiser?”

“Ah, but not as wise as them.” Tony slid into the seat next to Jensen’s and joined him in watching the spectacle of celebration before them. 

“Oh?” Jensen asked, looking to Tony for explanation.

“They’re a reminder of a very important truth. No matter what happens, no matter how great the odds, or dire the circumstances, love will always find a way,” he turned to Jensen, dark brown eyes glittering with his own unshed tears and seeming to stare into Jensen’s soul. “And when we find love, even in the worst of times, we need to grab on with both hands, fight for it, and never let go.”

Swallow and a nod, Jensen found himself unable to speak, the tears now rolling down his cheeks. “Is it any easier? When you’ve had an entire lifetime with someone and you lose them?”

“No,” Tony answered, quiet and honest as always. “Different, I’m sure, but easier… Love is never easy, except when it is. Love is always hard, except when it isn’t. You know how it goes. And loss, is exactly the same thing. There’s never enough time.”

Jensen nodded, not sure if he understood, and looked back at the couple, who were now slowdancing in a circle “Then why do we—why should we—”

“Because it gives us a reason to fight like nothing else. It reminds us life can be better than it is. It gives us something to come home to, to remember, to want others to have.”

“It makes us vulnerable, desperate, it compromises our judgment.”

“You really think Misha could have sacrificed himself if he didn’t love you? You think you could have picked yourself up, kept on going, _built_ this world, if you didn’t love _him_?” Tony demanded, incredulous at Jensen’s doubt. “Jensen, love is terrifying because it is so powerful. It takes way reason, and it comes wrapped up in faith and devotion, and all the sorts of things that take away reason and ration, and that can be dangerous, deadly, even. But it’s the only thing that gives you an edge that lets you keep on fighting when you know it’s impossible, just because it’s the right thing to do, the thing you have to do. It makes you try where every test, model, prediction, statistic, and odd says you’re going to lose, because you _can’t_ give up. Sometimes it’s the only advantage we have. It’s a better motivator than fear or hate or bigotry, and even when our opponents are given over to zealotry, it rarely rises to the level of true love.” Tony reached out and squeezed Jensen’s knee, hard enough that he felt it even through the jumbled haze of sensation that his right leg drifted into whenever he was at all tired. “What you see there, is a reminder of why we’re still here. No matter how much it hurts, don’t you forget that.”

Jensen blinked, blinked again, finding it hard to breathe around the pain in his chest. “It’s just sometimes, sometimes I still expect him to walk through the door. I imagine him out there somewhere, and he’s just got to finish a damn mission, and he’ll be home. And sometimes I start to believe it. I think of all the things I want to show him, everything I want to tell him, all the questions I want to ask, the advice I want to seek, and I can’t believe—I just cannot accept that I will not ever get to do any of those things.”

“If you want to ask him a question, then ask him. _Talk_ to him. I talk to Marie all the time,” Tony confided with a bump of his shoulder. 

Jensen glanced at him nervously.

“It doesn’t make you crazy, or make _me_ crazy,” Tony said, voicing Jensen’s thought. “One of the privileges of sharing your life with someone is that you get to know them, sometimes better than you know yourself. So when you need to seek Misha’s counsel, or share your joys or sorrows, you _do_ it. Because he’s still right here,” he tapped Jensen’s head, “and here,” he tapped over Jensen’s heart. “And doesn’t matter if you think that sounds corny or trite, it’s _true_. And sometimes that’s the only kind of truth that can keep a person from going crazy.”  
“Tony,” Jensen said, smiling up at him, “please don’t ever change.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, squeezing Jensen’s shoulder as he stood.

~~~

The reception began to wind down in the wee hours of the morning. Even many of the young children stayed up and joined in the festivities. It was a joy and a relief to see their people celebrating for once, using the Gathering Hall of the Capitol building for a happy purpose instead of for strategy meetings and funerals and sharing updates on the latest casualty reports from the war.

Jensen worried about how much grief and fear and sadness the space absorbed. It wasn't that the objects in the space retained the emotions of those that inhabited it. No, it was the very real, tangible hormones and pheromones a room full of emotionally distressed people excreted. Invisible chemical signatures that saturated and stuck to every surface they encountered. 

While humans might worry about sweat and body odor making a place smell unpleasant, for the Naiians, the problem was much worse. As telepaths, the chemical traces of the emotions left behind, evoked those emotions in everyone who came in contact with them. The hormones might dissipate in the air, only to settle into the walls and floor and furniture. Transmitted through the skin, they had the same effect. Depending on what chemicals were left behind, Naiians would experience memories, visions of the traumatic events that had occurred. 

Katie had a team working on special cleaning agents, and they had a few things that worked most of the time on all but the strongest emotions or biochemical concentrations. Unfortunately, the war and general circumstances meant cleaning products weren't a top priority, so they tried to keep the most distressed people out of there and recommended everyone avoid touching the room's surfaces with bare skin. It was less than ideal, but it worked well enough. It was _functional_ , and like a lot of things in Naiian society at the moment, functional was about all they could manage.

Still, it was good to have positive chemical signals showering the room. The joy was palpable, and Jensen hoped it lingered in the air for a few days at least.

As the wee hours drifted on towards dawn, more of the senior officers and Councilmembers began to leave. Mackenzie and her unit left a little after 0200, complaining about the mission they had beginning in the morning, or rather later in the morning. Jensen bid his sister goodnight and tried not to think too hard about the dangers she was facing on a daily basis and how he could do nothing about it. It wasn't the life he wanted for her, for any of them, but then again, she was her own person, and if they wanted to have a future and lives and a chance at self-determination, they didn't have much choice but to fight. Emma dragged Danni off to bed just before 0300, and Jared and Genevieve had slipped out by 0330. By 0345, only Jensen, Katie, Aldis, a dozen or so officers, and a handful of teenagers from the ADF Training Academy remained. 

Jensen was happy to have Aldis back, and a bit... disoriented by it. He'd gotten so used to losing people, he wasn't sure how to react to getting someone back. A big part of him was convinced it was a dream or illusion. Call him a pessimist, but he had reason to be. He couldn't help it if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

There was an itch under his skin, growing, difficult to ignore. Now that Aldis was back, they were out of excuses. If he'd gained valuable intel--and his initial report suggested he did--they were going to have to act on it, use it to their advantage. The situation on Earth was becoming untenable and every day they risked losing not just those ORDA found, but every Naiian left on Earth. All it would take would be one human finding Nicki and Alona's safe house or learning the full extent of the Naiian's telepathic abilities, and it would be all over. They'd lose families, friends, and a huge chunk of their population while quite possibly leading ORDA to their doorstep. Regardless of what the Council ruled, Jensen had to act. He'd had enough failures for one lifetime. He'd lost Misha and left him in the hands of the enemy. He couldn't fail Nicki and Alona too.

So, just before 0400, while Katie and Aldis were distracted by a story one of the kids was telling, Jensen slipped out and headed back to his office. Aldis' debriefing wasn't scheduled to start until 1430, and there was no way Jensen was going to sleep tonight. If he focused on intel or battle plans now, there was no way he'd have the brainpower to be coherent come the afternoon, but there were other productive ways to spend his time. Like training.

_The kind of training he didn't discuss with anyone._

The halls were deserted at this hour of the morning, and his footsteps echoed ominously on the synthetic marble floors. But there was no one to wake or disturb, not in this part of the Capitol. It was all offices and conference rooms and comm stations. On the rare occasion he was on Aurora for longer than a few days, he usually trained at home in his residential quarters in the Capitol annex. He could go there now, they would afford more privacy than his office, but he'd have to travel further, be more likely to run into people on the way, and it was the first place anyone would look for him.

No, the lab in his office complex would offer almost as much privacy. Tucked in the interior of his office suite, it was clear of surveillance equipment. He could bump up the security in his outer office to compensate for the sensory data he'd lose, and still have some peace and quiet to himself without raising any alarms, or eyebrows. Besides, if he got there soon, he could take the minimum dose, let it cycle through his system, clean up, get rest, and still make it to the debrief on time. The panantipropenol would run its course in about six hours. That gave him four hours to nap and change after he was done, and another 30 minutes to make it back to the meeting. It was enough buffer time that he could be confident he'd be in full possession of his faculties by the time the debrief rolled around, even if he the drug took longer to wear off than expected. He'd get some of the _itch_ out of his system while doing something productive and no one would be the wiser. If anyone came looking for him, they'd just deduce he'd dozed off in his lab, and leave him be. Katie sure as hell was always pestering him to get more sleep, there was no way she'd let anyone wake him for anything short of a full-scale planetary assault. If that happened, well...

He always took that risk while training. And to be honest, if the humans attacked Aurora now, they were fucked regardless of whether Jensen was firing on all cylinders.

~~~

He probably shouldn’t have been surprised that Aldis was the one to find him about an hour later. Jensen was sitting in his carbon fiber collapsible wheelchair, when Aldis slipped into the office without making a sound.

“Seriously, Jensen, how could you be so stupid?” Aldis asked, crossing the room in three quick strides and grabbing Jensen’s hands. 

“Hey, hey. I’m not trying to kill myself,” he said, swatting at Aldis’ grip and trying to tug his hands free. 

Aldis was too busy looking over his arms, searching first the right then the left, before moving on to Jensen’s torso, neck, legs. 

“I’m not trying to hurt myself. Jesus!” Jensen scolded, slapping Misha a little harder. “I’m not suicidal. Get off!” He managed to get one hand to the wheel guard and roll back an inch, only to be stopped by his desk.

“Oh yeah? Then what the fuck are you doing. Shooting up with panantipropenol? Seriously! Do you _know_ what that could do to you, randomly interrupting your brain chemistry like that? Katie says you do this every time you’re home for more than two or three days. Sometimes twice in a week!”

“How the hell does Katie know?” Jensen asked suspiciously. He’d been careful, so, so careful—

“Oh my god what kind of an idiot _are_ you?” Aldis exclaimed, dropping into Jensen’s abandoned desk chair. “You’re trying to sneak around behind the backs of a planet full of telepaths!”

“But I’m _not_ telepathic when I’m on panantipropenol,” Jensen countered. “So, whose mind are they reading?”

“Not reading your mind you moron… Jesus, Jensen! You used to be smart. Is that shit rotting your brain?”

Jensen just cocked his head to the side, scowling. “You’re not making much sense.”

“I’m going chalk that up to you being tired and under too much pressure.” When Jensen didn’t show any further sign of understanding, Aldis continued, “the _absence_ of a mind is just as noticeable as its presence. When the planet’s most gifted and famous telepath suddenly drops off the communal radar, people notice.”

“Oh,” Jensen said, feeling his cheeks purple with embarrassment. “I didn’t think.” And god how could he be so insensitive… Katie must have been beside herself with worry.

“Well, Katie told me not to go too hard on you. Seems she knows what you’ve been doing and thinks it has some merit,” Aldis offered.

“Look, I need to _train_. During the Purge, when I was recovering from symbiote withdrawal, I was helpless, worse off than an ordinary paraplegic because I’d never learned how to adapt to my body. The threat of someone using panantipropenol against me, as a weapon, to treat me, for whatever reason… It was terrifying. Kept me up at night. Gave me panic attacks. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t think. I _had_ to learn. This is me reclaiming my life, seizing my identity, owning my disability. I’m not afraid of panantipropenol anymore.” By the end of his rant, Jensen was smiling honestly. He was _proud_ of what he’d done and wanted Aldis to approve.

“You fucking _idiot_. Did you ever think about _telling_ anyone. Why would you do this to yourself alone?”

“Wha—”

“What if you’d fallen, gotten hurt? What if you had autonomic dysreflexia?”

“Dude, my injury’s at T-7, it’s not that likely,” Jensen protested.

“Less likely, but not impossible. You took a stupid, stupid risk,” Aldis scolded.

“Well,” Jensen countered, urging his chair forward and forcing Aldis to back out of the way. “I’d be happy to show you what I _can_ do. Besides, panantipropenol wears off a lot faster now.”

“Cause you’ve built up a resistance!” Aldis shouted.

“And it makes it a much less effective weapon against me.”

“And what if you have symbiote withdrawal again? What then?”

Jensen’s jaw clicked shut.

“Hadn’t thought of it?” Aldis offered.

“More like I wanted to believe that wasn’t possible.”

“Look, I can _teach_ you how to consciously control your procogitol levels so you can practice all you want without endangering yourself or abusing drugs,” Aldis added, unable to suppress a giggle. 

“Oh my god, how did this turn into an after-school special?” Jensen asked.

Aldis slid off the chair and wrapped Jensen into a hug. “Man I’ve missed you!”

“You too, you too,” Jensen agreed, patting Aldis’ back. “And thanks for calling me out on being a moron.”

“Any time, bro.”

And idea occurred to Jensen, bringing a broad grin in its wake. “There’s something you have to see,” Jensen said to Aldis as he pulled on his gloves.

“What?” Aldis asked looking a little hesitant. There were those who still didn’t trust Aldis, who probably never would thanks to his time among the Licinians. It didn’t matter that Aldis had bougnt back insights, training, and knowledge that could save lives, maybe their entire people. To some, Aldis would always tainted, suspect. The Licinians were his own real-life Lusankya, a single word that could strike fear into the hearts and souls of every Naiian on Aurora. And Aldis could be well on his way to becoming the next Tyco Celchu, trailed by security a permanent prisoner in his own life, unable to ever prove his honesty or trustworthiness.

Not if Jensen had anything to say about it. Of course, those who would fear Aldis the most, would probably want to kill Jensen if they knew what he was going to do. “It’s show, not tell. Come on,” he called over his shoulder as he began to wheel them away.

Jensen didn’t need functioning telepathy to read the expression on Aldis’ face. “No, I’m not worried about your recent sojourn with one of our enemies,” he explained as he rolled along. “For one, I know you weren’t actually with our _enemies_ ; the idea that species, races, peoples, planets, even nations are not monolithic forces is not lost on me.” He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Aldis. “For another, you’d think a group of telepaths would do a better job of _reading_ someone. You’re not a threat, not to us. Sure, you could be one if you wanted to, but you don’t. And you need to feel like you belong, that’s why I’m going to show you what was perhaps our most important achievement while you were gone.”

“You shouldn’t be showing me this,” Aldis murmured under his breath.

“Nonsense,” Jensen disagreed, reaching forward to jab the call button on the nearest elevator, all too aware, suddenly, of how _Earth_ -like their current surroundings were. He could have been in any office building, well a really nice one anyway, and he could be taking an elevator up to see Misha, only… _No!_ Jensen wouldn’t let his mind drift down that path. Instead he looked up at Aldis, concentrating, focusing on the task at hand. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to trust my gut, listen to my instincts.”

“Some people would say you’re ignoring data, being irrational,” Aldis protested, playing the devil’s advocate. 

“ _Some_ people don’t understand that just because an assessment is subconscious or unconscious doesn’t mean it’s not _rational_. Everything about you, since the moment you’ve returned has told me that you’ve changed, but you’re not a sleeper agent. You won’t turn on us. You’ve found a deeper understanding, a kind of peace you didn’t think you’d ever have… and you’ve got a secret mission you haven’t shared with anyone,” Jensen added, letting the bomb drop.

“Wha—Jensen, I don’t know what you’re—”

Jensen held up a hand for silence as the elevator glided to a halt and the doors swished open. “Maybe you don’t even think of it that way yet. I’m not accusing you of lying. I just know you’ve realized your family could still be alive, and while you were away, you were reminded of just how important they are. You can’t let them go. Won’t leave them to die or be brutalized at the hands of our enemy. You’re going to find a way to go to Earth to look for them whether the _Council_ approves or not.” Jensen wheeled himself onto the lift, spinning the chair in a neat arc. One of those little tricks of daily living that were finally becoming second nature to him. “I find that risk unacceptable. I made a promise, a commitment to friends, family, every single one of our people left on Earth, and I refuse to let them down. I know we have intel, resources that you’ll need if you want to succeed, and you’ve got a host and breadth of knowledge we have no hope of duplicating if anything were to happen to you. So, I’m going to show you something that will keep you working on our side.”

The elevator chimed again, and the doors tried to squeeze shut. Jensen stuck his right arm out and halted it. “Coming in?” he asked.

Silently, Aldis stepped into the lift, and stood stock still as Jensen swiped his pass, pressed his hand to the scanner inside the door, punched in a code, and _finally_ selected a destination that wasn’t designated with a number.

“What are you—”

“You talked some sense into me; consider me returning the favor.”

“You know they’ll see where we’re going,” Aldis said hesitantly.

“Let them,” Jensen answered. “Maybe it will finally break the gridlock,” he added, with a bit more bitterness than he had intended.

Aldis looked at Jensen, probably taking in his glare and crossed arms, and said, “Look, I don’t want to be used as a bargaining chip or a distraction in some internal political rivalry.”

“Totally not my point,” Jensen explained. “But I do need you to keep an open mind.” Biting his lip, he asked, “What would you say are our greatest advantages, as a species?”

“Uh,” Aldis said after a few moments. “That’s kind of a loaded question. In terms of _what_? And is there a right answer you’re looking for or…”

Jensen shook his head. “I want to know what you think.” 

Aldis looked at him skeptically.

Shrugging, Jensen added, “I can’t use telepathy right now. You _know_ that. I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

“Well,” said Aldis, considering as the elevator continued on its path. “I’d say our telepathy is a pretty _useful_ attribute. But it’s a weakness as well as a strength… Our symbiosis and environmental adaptability have the same kinds of downsides.”

The elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened. Jensen waited while the Aldis took in the sight of the world spread out before them. They were higher up, almost in the tree tops, near the summit of a broad the complex’s easternmost tower. The elevator opened up onto a broad causeway that connected several of the towers on the east side. The sky was a gorgeous mix of purples and greens and golds and the horizon seemed close enough to kiss. 

Aldis sucked in a breath. “If I had to pick, I’d say that our best strength, as a people, is in our ability to hide, to go where no one else can, where it is difficult to follow. That’s the secret that has kept our people safe. We can travel farther than ships and faster. Unless we tell someone where we’re going and how to get there or someone follows us, we can stay safe, hidden, out of reach.”

“Better yet,” Jensen picked up where Aldis left off, “we can move large numbers of people, machinery, vehicles. They come with us and they don’t need to travel in circles that are more easily compromised. “

“This is the _ADF Collins_. It’s one of two ships in our fleet; and we’re building more, slowly, but they’re coming. This is how we’re going to defend our homeworld. Make a place safe for Naiians.”

~~~

When the next morning came, the council was not as receptive to Aldis’ plan as Jensen had hoped.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” Genevieve interrupted, holding up a hand in the universal gesture for stop. She cast a nervous, exasperated glance at Katie as she hopped down off the desk and rounded on Aldis. “Katie, do you want to tell them why this is a horrible idea, or should I?”

Katie chuffed out a half-laugh, “Be my guest.” She cast a sideways glance at Jensen, “Though I doubt either of us will make much of a dent in their resolve.”

“I—I don’t get it,” Aldis said from his perch on the table glancing back and forth between Katie and Genevieve. 

Jensen glanced around the room at the rest of the council. Danni was leaning back in her chair with her right foot propped on her left knee, arms crossed. She looked tense, but not confused, like she knew where the conversation was going, but wasn’t particularly happy about it. Jared was seated beside Genevieve, eyes downcast. Jensen watched as Jared squeezed Genevieve’s shoulder, but didn’t seem otherwise inclined to comment. Even that wasn’t particularly illuminating. For all his reputation as a chatterbox, Jared tended to be very quiet, contemplative, even reverent when the topic was serious, listening before he spoke. It was a habit that firmly solidified after the Licinian attack on Earth and had only strengthened since then.

“Neither do I,” Jensen admitted at last, running a hand through his hair. “Like it or not, we’ve got to go back to Earth at some point. It’s been long enough and sooner would be better than later. The longer we wait…” The sigh forced its way out of his throat, taking with it all the fear and dread that had built up inside ever since they fled Earth. “The longer we wait, the more likely there won’t be anyone _to_ save.” It hurt admitting it. It was a personal failure—he’d promised they would come back. He’d taken on the mantle of leader of their people; he’d earned their trust; he was the one with the skills and abilities that gave them the best chance of survival, and yet… He’d left most of their people behind. The hole inside him that had seemed to grow as time went on, he now knew was the telepathic weight of their people—the people they hadn’t saved, those left on earth still waiting. “I made a promise, and I intend to keep it. It’s—unconscionable to leave our people at the hands of ORDA. The longer we wait, the more lives will be lost. More of us tortured, _converted_ , killed. Aldis’s plan may be, well crazy and risky as hell, but it’s the best one we’ve had.”

“It’s not even that risky,” Aldis added. “I can mask my status as a Naiian so most of ORDA’s detection techniques will fail. I’ve got almost the same potential rating as Jensen,” he cocked his head in Jensen’s direction, “but I don’t have any of his uh, disadvantages.” Aldis flinched, “I mean no offense or disrespect,” he added to Jensen.

“None taken.” Yeah, it stung a little to hear it, but it was true. “You sure don’t have to rely on __ to get around. You’re not allergic to posiphase either,” Jensen pointed out.

“Right,” Aldis agreed with a nod. 

“But you are allergic to penicillin, benzodiazapines, and tetracyclenes,” Katie interjected, her voice clipped. 

Jensen glanced her way, surprised to see she was pinching the bridge of her nose, glaring down at her feet. That was Katie pissed off and frustrated, probably more frustrated than anything else if the weary creases in her forehead were any indication. But why? What was he missing?

“If you’re worried about me getting hurt and inadvertently exposed to something, give me one of those alert bracelets,” Aldis suggested.

“What, listing all three allergies?” Genevieve asked, incredulous.

 _Oh._ Jensen wondered how he could have been so oblivious. He cast a surreptitious glance at Jared, who inclined his head and gave him a one-shouldered shrug, confirming his realization. _Fuck._ There was no way—

“Yeah,” Aldis shrugged, “so what? That’s what normal people, excuse me, _humans_ , do when they’re allergic to something, what’s the big deal?”

“If you’re gonna do that you might as well tattoo ‘mutant alien freak’ across your forehead and save yourself the hassle,” Genevieve muttered, contemptuously. She shuddered as she said it, as if horrified to have been pushed so far.

Beside her Jared reached out and rubbed her arm in reassurance. 

Jensen watched Aldis’ head whip around, slack-jawed. Hell, Jensen understood what was going on now, but her bluntness still shocked him.

Danni flinched. 

Jensen felt like he might puke.

But Katie stiffened almost imperceptibly and then nodded, a slow approving bob of the head. She glanced at Genevieve, their eyes meeting in unspoken agreement. Genevieve might not be telepathic, but she sure was a master of nonverbal communication. Sometimes Jensen almost forgot she wasn’t Naiian.

“Excuse me?” Aldis asked, his voice high-pitched with shock, eyes venomous.

“Do you know what the incidence of penicillin allergy is in the human population?” Genevieve asked, giving nothing away.

“I don’t know, 10 percent?” Aldis guessed.

“Try one,” Genevieve answered.

“One what?” Aldis countered. Jensen couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or was still so thrown by Gen’s outburst that he wasn’t tracking.

“Percent,” Genevieve replied with exasperation. “The incidence of penicillin allergy in the Naiian population is close to 60 percent.”

“A little over, actually,” Katie confirmed, nodding at Aldis’ scowl. 

Aldis shrugged, clearly calculating the odds and opened his mouth to speak, only for Genevieve to cut him off again.

“Allergies of the other drugs aren’t any more common among humans. Allergies to all three? You’re talking about an infinitesimally small portion of the population,” Genevieve held up her finger and thumb a hairsbreadth apart to get the point across. “But if you’re talking about Naiians—there’s a list of ten common classes of drugs in human medicine. Between 98 and 99 percent of all Naiians are allergic to at least one drug on that list. Eighty-three percent of Naiians are allergic to two, 70 percent are allergic to three—go all the way up to five and you’re still talking about 45 percent of the Naiian population, and yes, oh yes, there are a few people out there who are allergic to all _ten_!” Genevieve was up and pacing now, her pointer finger aimed up, jabbing at the ceiling with every other word. 

Aldis cast Jensen a glance, one eyebrow cocked high, questioning. He was expecting to find agreement, confirmation, but Jensen shook his head. “Sorry,” he sighed, “not me. I’m only allergic to seven.” And boy did that feel weird; Jensen had never before felt _lucky_ about his drug allergies, had never stopped to realize it could be worse. He knew Aldis could feel the truth in his answer, but Jensen didn’t want to give away the rest. It wasn’t his story to tell.

Of course, Aldis was brilliant and intuitive, and didn’t need Jensen’s wayward thoughts to figure that out. His gaze landed immediately on Jared. “You?” he said sounding surprised.

“Shit, baby, I’m sorry,” Genevieve swore, casting Jared a guilty look. She curled in on herself, but Jared reached out and patted her arm and smiling encouragingly at her as she paced past him.

“It is what it is,” Jared said, adding his own shrug to the mix.

Aldis took a moment to process the revelation—he was the only one in the room who hadn’t known after all—and Genevieve seized the opportunity to continue. “My point is, the odds of a human having your allergies is roughly one in a billion, while the odds for a Naiian are astronomically higher. Alerting anyone to your condition would be akin to sending out an all-points bulletin that you’re one of the dreaded ‘infected,’ or whatever they’re calling Naiians these days. Chances are they’d detain you in quarantine and call in an ORDA strike team. You’d be ‘converted’ in a matter of minutes.”

“How—” Aldis questioned, glancing back and forth between Katie, Jensen, and Danni in search of an explanation.

“We may not be able to set foot on Earth, but getting accurate intel has never been the problem,” Danni explained, breaking her silence. Pinning Aldis with her gaze, she added, “ORDA’s known about Naiian allergies and incidence rates as long as we have. They were already using them to detect and track suspected Naiians before we left Earth.”

“The current cover story to the general population is that there’s a new, highly virulent, sexually transmitted virus out there that can lay dormant for years, decades even. ORDA is claiming the virus causes severe changes to human brain chemistry leading to erratic behavior, cognitive degeneration, and death. All the major governments are going along with the story,” Katie added. 

“We’re not a hundred percent sure what information they’ve given medical personnel, but we know they’re testing for Naiian neurotransmitters at ordinary civilian hospitals. Showing up with an alert bracelet listing your allergies would guarantee you a test,” Danni continued.

“But, if I’m controlling my output, I could probably pass those tests!” Aldis protested, gesticulating in frustration. “That’s kind of the whole point.”

“If you’re injured, can you really expect to maintain that level of control?” Jared asked.

“That doesn’t even matter,” Genevieve protested. “The tests the hospitals use are more sensitive than the tests you’d face on an interplanetary arrival. Even if you could pass them, the hospital wouldn’t let you go until ORDA cleared you, and they order genetic testing on all suspected Naiians. Besides, your allergies would draw attention to your other Naiian traits, and your allergy combination is so rare they’d probably keep testing you until they got the results they expected no matter how you manipulated the output.”

“Other traits?” Aldis asked.

It was Jensen’s turn to be surprised. Surely Aldis knew—he couldn’t have spent all that time learning about their Licinian heritage and how their bodies worked, learning to control and manipulate his brain and body chemistry to such a degree that even Julian Bashir would be jealous, and _not_ realize the other differences between Naiians and humans. He reached out, sensing Aldis—it wasn’t ignorance he was projecting but curiosity. Aldis was looking for confirmation, uncertain he shared the correct frame of reference.

“Like your body temperature, unless you’re planning to raise that while you manipulate your brain chemistry,” Geneveive offered.

“Ninety-seven even on the Fahrenheit scale is enough of an outlier on range of human norms it would draw attention to you,” Katie said softly. She sighed and moved to slump against a bare patch of wall just to the right of the door. “This is why I don’t think we can send any Naiian to Earth. It’s too risky. If you wear any sort of alert, you risk exposure; if you don’t, you risk getting poisoned. Even if we could train someone who doesn’t have any allergies to manipulate their brain chemistry, body temperature alone could raise suspicion. And for all we know they’ve started testing people’s reactions to extreme environmental swings. Lie and say the furnace is broken or the AC’s stuck on high and voila, you’ve got an extra test to spot Naiians.”

“It’s a risk,” Aldis acknowledged. “But so is anything we do. Even doing nothing carries risks. And this risk? I’m willing to take it.” He sighed, deflating, showing the weight of his time away from Earth, from Aurora, from everyone he knew and loved and the toll it had taken. Gone was the eager, bright-eyed young man full of enthusiasm and lust for adventure. This Aldis was weary, jaded, and _wise_. “I get it, okay, for all our similar looks, we’re a lot different from humans on the inside. We all know this. It doesn’t change anything. I’m still your best shot at getting someone planetside and rescuing the rest of our people!”

Jensen watched the argument unfold around him, feeling the mounting tension. If someone didn’t interject soon, it was going to degenerate into an all-out shouting match. Danni was getting irritated. Katie was adamant. Aldis was pissed off and brimming with righteous conviction and a burning need to make himself understood. And Jared was projecting the same hopelessness Jensen had been feeling ever since they’d left Earth— _ever since they lost Misha_. Of course Genevieve wasn’t projecting, since she wasn’t Naiian, so Jensen shot her a glance to get a read on her mood, and what he saw surprised him.

Geneveive was quiet and still. Gone was the air of exasperated disbelief and the restless pacing. Instead she seemed to be caught in deep contemplation—right elbow cupped in her left palm, hand on chin, thinking. 

Katie’s and Aldis’s argument escalated into shouting and name-calling, and Danni was trying to get their attention, yelling at them to break it off, shut up, but still Genevieve pondered.

“It’s my life to risk!”

“You’re too valuable. With all you’ve learned, we can’t let you throw it all away on some half-assed plan that’s going to get you killed or turned into another mindless ORDA drone!”

“I said knock it off already!”

“Aldis is right,” Geneveive said softly.

“What?” Katie, Aldis, and Danneel chorused, turning as one to face Geneveive with mixed expressions of confusion and shock.

Jared met Jensen’s eye across the room and nodded. They both understood, but this was a revelation Genevieve needed to share. Coming from a human, maybe the others would actually listen and take the realization to heart. 

“Anyone we send will be too valuable to risk, but Jensen and Aldis are right; every moment we wait, we risk losing more lives. Naiian lives. Human lives. ORDA is destroying them all,” Genevieve began. “For every Naiian they kill or convert, there are humans who love that person whose lives are torn apart right along with them. Every lie ORDA tells, every hateful untruth Earth governments parrot, they make more humans complicit in genocide.” Genevieve uncrossed her arms and stood tall, drawing every eye in the room to her. “Jensen made a promise—we _all_ made a promise—to go back for those left behind. Many of us have family still there—I know Aldis does and so do thousands of others. We need to find out what happened to them. Even if the answers aren’t good, we need to know. We’ll never have closure, we’ll never be able to move on as a society if we don’t.” She paused, glancing around the room and looking each of them in the eye, gauging to see if her words were sinking in. 

Jensen gave her a little nod when she looked his way.

“And it’s not just about keeping promises and being altruistic. We _need_ those people—Naiians and humans—if we’re going to have any chance at building a lasting world. The longer they stay on Earth under the ORDA’s thumb, the more likely one of our enemies is going to figure out Naiians are telepathic and use that knowledge to obtain the location of __. If that happens—” Geneveive shrugged, slapping her hands against her sides as she finished, “we’re fucked. There’s no way with our resources and numbers and the sheer size of our planet that we could hold off an attack of the magnitude Earth could sustain, either from orbit or via wormhole.”

“I get that we need this,” Danneel said, weighing her words carefully, speaking as the seasoned military commander she was, “but even true necessity doesn’t change the risks. And I’m not talking about the risk to Aldis’ life—” she glanced over at Aldis, “no offense, but we all risk our lives, it’s part of the job description.”

“None taken,” he acknowledged.

“It’s just… Given the risk of Aldis being detected and caught, what’s to stop them from holding him and torturing him until he gives up the location of __ or spills the beans about our mental abilities? We know they can incapacitate us without killing us,” she cast Jensen a look of acknowledgment, “and by now they must have realized the memory problems this ‘cure,’ have erased the knowledge about __ right from under their noses. If they get Aldis—what’s to stop them from torturing him until he cracks—”

“I won’t _crack_ ,” Aldis protested.

“It’s not a guarantee,” Danneel countered.

“I’ve been through training; I’ve _been_ tortured. It’s a risk every soldier takes, you know that,” Aldis shot back.

“Yeah, but they’ve got psychotropic drugs neither SERE training nor ORDA __ training ever prepared you for, and ‘every soldier’ doesn’t carry around the key to destroying every life of her people,” Danneel pointed out. “Relying on training isn’t going to cut it.”

“Then we do everything we can to minimize the risks, give Aldis options if he’s caught,” Jensen murmured.

“I’d take their damn treatment, lose myself, before I’d endanger this world,” Aldis concurred with deadly seriousness. “I mean that.”

“Well then,” Katie hedged, licking her lips nervously, “maybe we can get Aldis a dose of their cure as an emergency kill switch, and in the meantime… we start figuring out how to minimize risks.”

~~~

Minimizing risks turned out to be a lot easier—and a lot more complicated—than any of them had anticipated.

Danneel moved for a full council meeting to discuss the plan, but only after Aldis presented and demonstrated what he’d learned. That process, in and of itself, took days. Aldis was tutoring Jensen independent of the formal presentation, so a lot of what they were learning was review for Jensen, but many of the council members were less trusting.

“He spent almost two years in enemy hands; two _years_ ,” Roberts complained, confiding in Jensen a few nights later after the Council took a recess for the night. They were in Jensen’s office and Roberts was perched on the edge of Jensen’s desk, while Jensen sat in his wheelchair.

He’d decided to try 50 hours—two full Auroran days—without telepathy _and_ without drugs to learn his body and practice getting around, fighting even. Jensen secretly—not so secretly that he didn’t confide in Aldis—wished he could turn off just the neuroreceptors that allowed procogitol to serve as a bypass mechanism for his injured spine and not his telepathic communication. It would be a really interesting—and educational—experience to live in his body with his disability as a Naiian. Jensen hated feeling like his body was fake and lying to him, and that was exactly how he felt on normal days when he was able to get up and move around without any support or intervention despite the injuries he’d sustained. Only suppressing procotigol, either with panantipropenol or Aldis’ training left him feeling just as fake. Sure, there was a strong chance anything that knocked Jensen off his feet would be accompanied by a temporary loss of telepathy and other common Naiian traits, say with weaponized panantipropenol attack. But that body, the facsimile of a human with a spinal cord injury, Jensen became when he was under the influence of panantipropenol, that wasn’t him. And Jensen really wanted to learn _himself_. What would he be like as a Naiian if the procogitol didn’t act like a bridge in his central nervous system.

Popping a wheelie—one of the many tricks Jensen was finally starting to perfect—and spinning around, Jensen suppressed the sigh that wanted to escape. “Aldis spent two years in deep cover away from his home, his people, and everyone he knew and loved, because we _asked_ him to, so he could learn more about our heritage and help us.” It could have just as easily been him, or Jared, or—his heart clenched— _Misha_ who had been asked to go. “It could have been you, you know,” he added, turning back to face Roberts, and setting his chair down on all four wheels.

“His MASUS index is eight points higher than mine, and he had extensive training in covert ops at Annapolis,” Roberts countered dismissively. She glared at Jensen from where she sat on the edge of his desk, swinging her legs while eating an apple.

“Shouldn’t it really be NASUS index?” Jensen pondered, “Naiian-Associated Skill Utilization Score?”

Roberts shrugged, taking a bigger bite of the apple, and shooting him an annoyed glare.

“Emma, you were a cop before ORDA grabbed you. You gonna tell me they taught you nothing about undercover ops at the academy?” Jensen returned his own glare. “Besides, we all passed POT and SERE training, or it’s equivalent. Any of us could have gone. Your linguistics score is two points higher than Aldis’s; we could have used that as justification to nominate you instead.” They wouldn’t have, of course, and they both knew it. Aldis had been picked in part because he was talented, skilled, currently able-bodied, and not attached. The next most logical person would have been Katie, and they couldn’t send her because she was their best, most knowledgeable doctor.

“It was Aldis’s idea.”

Well, there was that too. “We all agreed it was a _good_ idea,” Jensen pointed out.

“I just don’t know if we can trust him after he’s been hanging around _Licinians_ for so long. What if they turned him against us? He could be a sleeper agent.”

It was _possible_. “Maybe,” Jensen shrugged and tipped his head, taking his gloved hands off the wheels and resting them in his lap, “but it’s a risk we have to take.”

“Like sending one of us back to Earth,” Roberts hedged.

“Yeah, actually, almost exactly like,” Jensen agreed, his voice softer as he was overcome with emotion. Fuck, he hoped Alona and Nicki were okay. Chances were they didn’t even know about Misha… Every so often he’d try to imagine what it would be like, cut off from everyone, from any knowledge of what was happening with your own people, your friends and family, living apart, away from your old life, bearing the responsibility of holding everyone else stuck on Earth together, not knowing when help was coming, or if it would ever arrive, but knowing that you _had_ to stay strong, and keep looking, reaching out and finding more people like you, helping them to hide, to keep safe, and knowing you could never get caught… because if you did, everything you cared about, everything you’d been entrusted to protect would be destroyed. Maybe it wasn’t so bad for them because they’d never been a part of ORDA. They hadn’t lived through the war and the victory and watched it turn on its head, become prisoners condemned by the very people they fought to protect. Then again, did that make it harder to go on? Were Alona and Nicki tempted to go back to their old lives? Did they think about just walking away? Taking a chance, maybe they’d make it and not get caught? Did they ever stop believing in the truth, and start believing the lie ORDA sold to the rest of the world?

Jensen pushed the nagging doubts to the back of his mind. He was closer now to keeping his promise than he had been at any time in the two years since they’d left Earth. So, it wouldn’t be him going, at least not at first… Jensen was going to have to come to terms with that. Roberts’ doubts aside, he trusted Aldis, and knew if anyone could pull this off, he could.

“But how can we?” Roberts asked, huffing in frustration.

“You really think Aldis is going to betray us? Don’t you think we’d be able to sense it in him? If he was going to give away our location or the existence of others on Earth, wouldn’t he have done it already?” Jensen posed.

“Maybe he has,” Roberts countered. “For all we know the Licinians could have tipped of ORDA a long time—”

“The Licinians already _know_ how to find us on Earth. They know we’re telepathic. They know we can sense and find each other, and with a little effort, they could have routed out all of us for ORDA.” Jensen’s voice was flat.

“Then why haven’t they?” Roberts asked.

“I don’t know,” Jensen admitted. It was a question that had been nagging at him for ages. Was it possible the Licinians couldn’t sense them? Aldis would know more about that than he did. For that matter, could Naiians sense Licinians? Jensen could count on one hand the number of times he’d knowingly been within a few thousand miles of Licinians and none of those times had been particularly calm… but inside the control room, there had been a split second where he had known… Did it go both ways? Maybe they were asking the wrong questions. 

If the Licinians revealed what they knew about Naiians, it would invite their human allies to ask too many questions. ORDA and most of the human powers on Earth were very xenophobic. If they found out Naiians were even more _alien_ than they’d thought and the Licinians were just like them, it wouldn’t bode well for the new Licinian alliance. ORDA would kick the Licinians out, and while the Licinians had superior firepower, with the Fropali actively overseeing interactions and protecting Earth the Licinians would have no choice but to pull out, especially given how fragile their survival as a government was. If the Fropali or other treaty members believed the new Licinian government was up to the same tricks as the old, it would be game over.

Besides, detecting every Naiian on Earth would be incredibly difficult and draining— _find all of the mutants everywhere_ , Jensen’s mind mocked. Even if the Licinians could accomplish it, what could ORDA or any human government do with that information? Rounding up that many people _at once_ would destroy the advantages that had been playing in ORDA’s favor. People would ask questions and _demand_ answers. The fairytales about psychoactive viruses wouldn’t fly and in the fallout, everything could be exposed. It was a risk the Licinians wouldn’t take.

“Jensen?” Roberts asked, sounding confused and a little concerned.

It took Jensen a moment to realize that with his abilities muted Roberts couldn’t read his mind… 

And maybe that was the answer all along.

“They know there’s the possibility we could hide. They can hide; we can hide.” He looked up at Roberts who towered over him in his chair despite her relatively diminutive stature. 

“I don’t—” She shook her head.

“Think about it. We learned what I’m doing—the reason you can’t tell what I’m thinking right now—from Aldis, and he learned it from another group of Licinians. But there’s no reason we couldn’t have figured it out on our own. No guarantee some of us _haven’t_ figured it out on our own.” And that realization sent a shiver through Jensen. He’d been counting on being able to rescue all of them. Find everyone like them and give them a choice, a chance, knowledge… And now he was going to have to face the fact he might not be able to find them all, no matter how hard he tried or how long he looked. “Some of us could be hiding even if they thought they’d caught all of us, they couldn’t be sure. More of _them_ could be hiding on Earth, and if ORDA knew—”

“Bye, bye alliance,” Roberts finished.

“Right.”

“You know, this could really work to our advantage, Jensen observed.

Eventually it looked like they would agree to let Aldis go undercover, return to earth, provided they had allies willing to help with the insertion. (There was no way they were taking the _Collins_ or any other ship in their tiny fleet to Earth.) But before they dispersed, the subject of rumors came up, and that included one of the rumors Jensen had hoped to avoid ever considering.

"What if it's true?" Katie asked, her voice hushed.

"What do you mean?" Jensen asked as he took two steps forward. He tried to act nonchalant and feign confusion, but his body betrayed him. No sooner had Katie spoken than a wave of terror flooded through him. His mind flooded with painful possibility as disbelief gripped his gut. He couldn't hid the hitch in his step, or the shudder as his breath caught in his chest. _No!_ he couldn't think, couldn't entertain the possibility. Yet it kept unfolding in his mind, taunting him in its impossible possibility, stretching out and twisting up the universe he'd carefully constructed around himself, as unbearable and unfathomable as eternity.

"What if Misha is alive somehow, someway, and they've reprogrammed him?" Aldis asked at last.


	6. Into the Crucible

**April 2015—ORDA Medical Facility, Texas, Earth**

As the days and months rolled on, Misha began to wonder what exactly his treatment was building towards. He was seeing less and less of Agam now, not because ORDA had decided they weren’t safe spending time together, but because ORDA had found her an actual job, or at least decided to, as Agam put it, “use her like a bitch and put her to work.”

They had her analyzing and translating something, communiques or codes or just propaganda messages Misha wasn’t sure, and it worried him a little, because it meant ORDA was aware of at least some of the many languages she spoke. But Agam seemed fine, and she was diving into the work because of the angle it provided her into the inner workings of ORDA and their thought processes. 

She’d confided in Misha, too, after he’d found the video about General Ferris’ death, the secret about General Bellman. “I was a journalist, like I told you. One of my… close colleagues went missing, disappeared, and we were pretty sure it had something to do with ORDA and their treatment of Markers.”

“N—naiians,” Misha had corrected, the word feeling alien and strange on his tongue, and yet right and true.

“Naiians,” Agam had nodded in agreement. “It was, not that long after you and your husband and everyone had tried to escape. I—I still don’t know what went down there,” she admitted. “I don’t know if anyone does, at least not anyone _here_ , except for maybe a tiny handful of people in ORDA command. But a lot of them escaped.”

“The officers think they went to an old colony world, except they don’t know where it is,” Misha confided.

“Yeah, the downside of turning everyone human and wiping their memories,” Agam had joked bitterly.

“But what about you? Why do you remember so much?”

“I tried to go undercover, find out what had happened to my friend. So, I got a lead on some of the, uh, infectious particulate—”

“Nano—nanosomething.”  
“—it’ll come to you in time, and I dosed myself. It worked too. I could feel my mind expanding, connect with others, sense people around me, and I tried to reach out, but I couldn’t find her anywhere, so I kept digging, and…. My luck didn’t hold out forever. I think someone spotted me when I was trying to break into the bombed out base in Kansas, and when I got back to Seattle, I got picked up off a train on my way from the airport, didn’t even make it to the coordinates for where their old headquarters were supposed to be. Six months later, I woke up here, my memories full of holes.” She’d shrugged like it was no big deal.

“So, how are they trusting you now?” he’d wanted to know.

“They’re not. And I don’t trust them either. I just fed them enough lies that they could get far enough in verifying to not actively suspect me, while hopefully not condemning anyone to one of their fucking Processing Centers.”

So Agam had worked, and Misha had found himself lonely and unoccupied for longer stretches of time. He remembered enough now to know who he really needed to avoid and yet still be able to cover it, and lied through his teeth every time Dr. Hanniger or Dr. Markinson or Dr. Sheppard or one of the others asked him what he remembered or how he was feeling. He was starting to think his apparent lack of progress was resulting in a permanent sentence to that of patient.

Then again, if they knew he remembered as much as he did—well, he’d be lucky if he never saw the outside of a cell again.

So it came as a surprise when Dr. Markinson led him away from the garden and the counseling suites one morning.

“Where are we going?” Misha gulped and hoped he came across as curious rather than frightened.

Markinson just gave him one of those meaningless smiles, and pushed open a set of double doors, leading Misha into an empty mess hall. It was the officer’s mess, in the transitional area where the base proper connected to the hospital. Misha had never been allowed this far away from his quarters before. A group of people were gathered near the front of the room, their cluster dispersing and spreading out as Misha and Markinson approached. There were a few doctors there that he recognized, including Drs. Hanniger and Sheppard, and a bunch of people in ORDA uniforms, a mix of BDUs and class As. And at the center of the crowd—

“Are you okay?” Markinson asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

Misha realized he’d just stumbled. “Just tripped myself, not looking where I was going,” he said hastily, trying to brush it off.

Markinson looked at him skeptically, as if he didn’t quite _believe_ Misha.

Not that Misha could blame him—the icy chill that had flowed through him and settled deep in his gut was pretty hard to hide. Because there, in the center of the group, was General Bellman. The woman he’d seen on tape, torturing and laughing at people who’d been his friends, gloating over their deaths. The woman who was _like them_ , or like Misha _had_ been, yet who went un-”cured” even as she stripped those around her of her identity.

“I think he’s just surprised to see me,” General Bellman, said projecting her voice across the room.

Misha was silent a few moments longer as they closed the gap and came to the small array of chairs gathered in front of the group of ORDA officials. “Yes, ma’am, I am surprised to see a General. I recognized the insignia on your uniform,” he added, “but I’m afraid I do not know you, should I?” Misha’s fingers twitched, his arm wanting to salute, the part of him that had been an officer well-versed in protocol warring with his seething disrespect and hatred of the monster before him, and all tangled up in him not being sure how much he _should_ remember, the version of himself he was projecting to others.

“Ahahahaha!” Bellman laughed, the sound loud, bell-clear, and genuinely pleasing. For someone so evil, she sure didn’t sound the part. 

Then again, she was apparently laughing at _Misha_ , so that was a point against her.

“I am sorry, please excuse me,” Bellman said, and _there_ that was the hint of deception Misha had expected to hear in her voice, the tone that suggested she’d never tell you what she was really thinking and everyone was one barked order away from their execution for displeasing her or not fitting in with her hands. “You do know me, or rather your former self, Colonel Collins did. And we actually have met before, in the very early days of your recovery, though I wouldn’t expect you to remember that.” She cocked her head.

 _Looking at my hands_ , Misha realized. 

“Although I can see at least a part of you remembers.”

“I—should I salute, ma’am?” Misha asked even as he brought his hand to his forehead. “I’m not in uniform, and I was under the impression I had been… discharged for lack of a better term.”

Bellman returned the salute and released it. “That’s what we’re here to talk about. Your doctors,” she swept a hand around to encompass the medical staff, “have told me you’ve made great progress in your recovery. Your memories have recovered to a point and are stable, and physically you’ve done far better than we expected, especially considering the extent of your injuries. According to your last physical therapy report, you’re physically capable of field deployment, and well on your way to being field fit. So consider this meeting, us reactivating you.”

Apparently this was news to more than just Misha, because one of the officers, a tall, built, imposing man with a Liverpudlian accent standing to General Bellman’s left audibly scoffed. “You’re actually giving him back his commission? After what he _did_ to us?”

“Colonel Simmons, you will kindly refrain from commenting out of term,” General Bellman barked to the officer, apparently Simmons. To Misha she added. “Please, take a seat, all of you.” She gestured to the chairs and several of the other officers and a few of the doctors followed her command. 

Misha allowed Markinson to lead him to a chair at the center of the semicircular array. He took his seat, feeling slightly numb. He noticed not _everyone_ had complied. Simmons and Hanniger both remained standing, although, Misha was pretty sure for different reasons. From what Agam had told him, Hanniger was sort of Bellman’s right hand man, while Barnes was clearly just being defiant… or trying to avoid Misha or both.

“I—I have to say I’m surprised, ma’am. I would have expected if you ever deemed me recovered and safe for polite society,” he paused to let the rest of the group’s chuckles quiet down, “you would find something less sensitive for me to do.”

“Are you implying you can’t be trusted?” Bellman asked, taking three steps towards him, and leaning over so her face was mere inches from Misha’s.

Straightening reflexively, he answered, “No Ma’am. But my memory still isn’t 100%, far from it. And after what I—the _other_ Misha did, how much damage he caused, I would imagine it would make the troops uncomfortable serving with me.”

“You got that bloody right,” Simmons muttered.

Bellman silenced him with a sideways glance. 

“That’s very considerate of you, and very thoughtful, Colonel,” she said, addressing Misha by his rank for the first time, “and that degree of reflection and concern just bolsters our decision to send you back out in the field. What you did, was horrible. Unspeakable. But I believe we are all in agreement it wasn’t really _you_ making those choices, but the virus that controlled you. Moreover, you understand the pain and loss it caused, knowing your own husband paid the ultimate price.”

Tears welling in his eyes, Misha found himself blinking and flinching involuntarily, eyes darting down to look at his lap, his shoes, anywhere but looking Bellman in the eye. Everything he knew, everything he’d remembered, and he still didn’t know what had happened to Jensen. Not really. _Was it still my fault?_

“You owe us for what you did,” she continued, but her tone was soft, having lost the hard edge of moments before, “and you _want_ to make things right. You want to atone. Who better to lead our people against the enemy than the former face of the rebellion? Who better to strike fear into rebel hearts than the man who used to lead them?”

“You want me, to what be your figure head in the war against the resistance?” Misha asked, dumbfounded, blinking up through tear-covered lashes to look her in the eye.

“No, when you’re ready, you’re going to lead them. Stop this uprising once and for all.”

“But—how? Aren’t Ackles and his people offworld somewhere we don’t even know how to find? Last I checked I’m not really suitable for offworld travel?” Realizing how insubordinate he sounded, Misha back pedaled quickly, “I—I’m not disagreeing General, I just don’t understand.”

“We’ll clear you for offworld travel if we have to.” 

Simmons flinched beside her. Hanniger scuffed her shoe against the floor, and even Bellman herself looked distinctly uncomfortable. 

“But… we may not need to. Intel says sooner or later the rebellion will come home. _Ackles_ will come here.”

“But why?” Misha asked, honestly curious. If he’d escaped this mess, he couldn’t really see himself voluntarily coming back to it.

“His parents for one. Two of his oldest friends for another. His obnoxious code of personal honor. Wanting to find out what happened to the remains of his fallen comrades. His best friend’s brother and nieces and nephews. Another friend’s family… each and every infected person he left behind. You see, he still thinks he’s _liberating_ them from some kind of oppression. He and his followers refuse to recognize this is a plague and they’re spreading it. Any way you slice it, eventually he’s going to come home. It’s been two years. Sooner, rather than later, he’s going to make his move,” Bellman explained.

“And I’m going to catch him,” Misha murmured, realization sweeping through him, making that pit in his gut solidify into a frozen lead weight that left him rooted to the spot. They expected him to kill others like him. Like who he’d been. Destroy them once and for all. Could he play that game? Knowing what he knew? Could he stay undercover long enough to make a difference? _What’s the alternative? If you refuse, you’ll reveal yourself. If you run, they’ll catch you. At least on the inside you can sabotage their plans, maybe find a way to relay information. And what’s the worst that can happen? You die? That’s gonna happen one way or another, anyway._

“You’re going to catch him, kill him, and bring this rebellion to its knees… After you’ve been through training again, of course,” Bellman added, the super-scary, intense persona she’d been channeling for the last minute or two dissipating as quickly as it had coalesced. 

“Well he sure as hell won’t be on my team, General,” Simmons objected.

“No, he won’t. You’ll be getting a new team. Collins will take charge of yours when he’s ready.” 

After that Bellman, Simmons, and Hanniger descended into a sort of three-way standoff with Sheppard throwing in color commentary—apparently he thought even less of the idea than Simmons.

Misha looked to his left to see Markinson’s reaction to the news, but Markinson was just wearing one of his meaningless enigmatic smiles and trying, and failing, to look encouraging while he was clearly distracted by Bellman dressing down Simmons.

“Don’t take it personally,” a voice to Misha’s right said, speaking into his ear.

“What?” he asked, whirling to find a dark-haired man with expressive eyebrows, intense green eyes, and a regulation-pushing five-o’clock shadow sitting in the chair next to Misha. 

“Simmons, don’t take his opinions personally. He’s a dick to everyone, especially everyone who’s recovered.” The man shifted in his seat, sliding closer to Misha, while looking around to make sure the others weren’t paying attention. “Apparently back in the day, Ackles was in his unit, and now the only people left are Simmons, and Mirakimi, General Bellman’s personal attaché. Story has it Simmons old CO tried to turn Ackles in, got into a confrontation with him, and wound up dead. Official word was suicide,” the man shrugged, “but Simmons never believed that. Mirakimi was infected so long his memory’s even worse than yours—word is the doctors built him a new personality from scratch, so I don’t think Simmons counts him as surviving. Ackles killed one of the other guys on their team during his escape, and when Ackles left, the fifth person on that old team disappeared. So, it’s just Simmons and he hates everyone who used to be infected. Especially you.”

“I thought you said not to take it personally?” Misha asked, confused.

“Well don’t. Because no one really knows if Simmons actually has something against you in particular, or if it’s just because you’re the highest-ranking formerly infected person to be brought back into the fold. Most of the guys think he’s crazy. And from the sound of it, you won’t have to worry about him anyway.”

“I guess that’s something,” Misha muttered. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked skeptically.

“Major Tyler Hoechlin,” the man said, extending his hand. As Misha shook it, he continued, “I’ll be your new 2IC when you’re up to speed, and trust me, you could be a raving lunatic or a zombie and you’d be a better CO than Simmons.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Misha said.

Tyler smiled.

And so began Misha’s journey back into the fold. All he could do was hope along the way, he’d find _something_ he could use to find a way out.

~~~

**May 2015—Fropali Embassy, Virginia, Earth**

Aldis arrived on Earth on a Tuesday stowed in a shielded cargo container carried by a Fropali diplomat. It was five hours with limited water and very stale air before he got to leave the container. When he was “unloaded” in a warehouse adjoining the (secret) Fropali embassy in Virginia (just outside Washington, D.C.), he was given 15 minutes and an industrial shower before he was picked up by a US Navy Noncom stuck in a car, and driven to Norfolk. The noncom thought he was an ORDA officer who’d been doing something undercover for the Fropali for the last two years and needed a plausible cover story. That cover story was that he’d been doing something even more clandestine for the CIA someplace extraordinarily secret and even more remote…. But on Earth. 

Before Aldis had time to worry if he’d be able to manage both cover stories, he was dropped in a mess hall with more baby officers than he could shake a stick at. They were all kids who’d been tapped by ORDA and, like Aldis, were about to undergo ORDA’s secretive intake process.

“What’s your name?” the young officer— _Ensign E. Romita_ , Aldis read off his nametag—asked.

“Al—” Aldis started. “Albion Hayes,” he finished, sliding easily into the identity they had developed. “Lieutenant Albion Hayes.”

Ensign Romita scrambled to a salute, followed with three of the other officers, two JGs and another ensign.

“At ease,” Aldis said, returning the salute. “I’m out of uniform; you don’t have to—” But the eagerness and _awe_ on their faces drew him up short.

“Sir, you’ve been in deep cover on a top secret mission,” replied Lt. J.G. K. Hollace, a young woman with olive skin and black hair that was braided into an intricate bun at the base of her neck. “The least we can do is show you a little respect.”

“Wh—why thank you,” Aldis replied, not knowing what to make of that comment. He just hoped the rest of the process wasn’t as painful and demeaning as he’d been led to believe.

~~~

**May 2015—ORDA Intake and Processing Center, Norfolk, Virginia, Earth**

Aldis tried not to flinch as the doctor swabbed his arm with rough, harsh strokes and hastily inserted the needle. Aldis had no fear of needles but that thing hurt like a son of a bitch going in. He wasn’t entirely confident it was in the vein, but the vial had started filling with dusky red, human-appearing blood, so he supposed it must have. “What, no phlebotomist?” he asked, glancing up at the doctor. 

The doctor, Sheppard according to his name tag, looked down at Aldis over the top of his thick-rimmed glasses that were straight out of the 1960s... or any movie about the Kennedy Administration. “You’ve been out of touch for a while, some sort of covert mission?” His accent was British though… Aldis had never been much good at parsing out the different region and class accents, much to his father’s dismay

Aldis nodded, “I spent the last three years on loan to the CIA in a deep cover situation. That’s all I’m allowed to say on the matter.”

Dr. Sheppard tutted and nodded. “Well as you might have heard or surmised from the circumstances,” he encompassed the room in a sweeping gesture, “things have changed in the last few years.” He fixed Aldis with a particularly pointed look, like he disapproved of Aldis being there, his lack of candor, or perhaps the entire situation, then went back to focusing on filling vials. “Phlebotomists are too risky. Too much chance of sample contamination or breaks in the chain of custody. You’ll excuse me if my technique is a little rusty. I didn’t spend four years of med school at John’s Hopkins and a residency at Princeton-Plainsboro learning how to do blood draws.”

So, British, but American-educated. Interesting… Dr. Sheppard withdrew the needle and let go of Aldis’ arm. “It’s okay. I get it. Just didn’t realize what a security threat medical technicians could be.” He should have expected it though. Luckily, it didn’t interfere with his plans. “You run DNA on that or something?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant and disinterested. 

The doctor glared at him. Of course it hadn’t worked 

“There’s just an awful lot of vials and I went through a full physical and work up last week before I left my previous location and again two days ago when I had my stateside debrief.” He grinned sheepishly. “They took an awful lot of blood too 

“No, that’s what the cheek swab is for,” Dr. Sheppard muttered, tipping his head at aforementioned swab where it sat on a sterile steel tray. “Your blood will be tested for other things... various sorts of markers that show up if you’ve been infected.”

Aldis nodded. “How long do I have to wait for results? My orders say I’m supposed to ship out tomorrow... I don’t even know where I’m going yet.” He glanced at the array on the tray. “Will all this be done in time? Though I guess they must know how long this takes...” he let his voice trail off and hoped he sounded like a mildly disoriented soldier worrying about being dicked around by the higher-ups in command.

“It’s seldom we have to deal with a situation like yours,” Dr. Sheppard admitted. “Most troops were either processed years ago and get pre-scheduled bimonthly rechecks, or their new recruits who get triple-checked before and after basic.”

“Sorry to throw a wrench in things then,” Aldis apologized. 

“Not to fear. These tests will be done long before tomorrow morning. We’ll even have time for follow-up,” he added with a completely creepy smile.

“Follow-up? And I didn’t say I was shipping out in the morning,” Aldis asked, letting some of his genuine nervousness bleed through.

“Ah, by the time you get to see me, I know your orders. Where you’re going. What you’re doing... within reason of course. Need to know, in case there are any _special_ tests I need to run.” He set down the last of the vials and came back at Aldis with the cheek swab.

Aldis hurriedly tapped his tongue against the inside of his cheek, activating the film Katie had given him. He just hoped it fucking worked. All it would take would be one stray epithelial cell, some DNA from his saliva, and they’d have him. Of course if the dude didn’t swipe in the right place... Aldis’ tension ratcheted up several notches as he opened his mouth and then released. He’d been right. The doctor was left handed and had immediately reached out to swab Aldis’ left cheek. He resisted the urge to breathe out a sigh of relief. If it worked the way it was supposed to, he’d be fine. 

“As for follow up...,” Dr. Sheppard continued, holding up the swab before placing it in a labeled, sterile, sample tube. “That depends on the initial results. If anything comes back... shall we say, other than normal, we run more tests to figure out what’s going on.”

“And special tests?” Aldis asked, keeping his voice balanced between boredom and curiosity.

“We shall see,” Dr. Sheppard answered. 

Next he took Aldis’ temperature—98.2 Fahrenheit—which was abnormal enough (and abnormal in the wrong way by being very slightly low) to make the doctor cock an eyebrow. 

Aldis would have liked to show up perfectly normal—or even run a little hot for a human—but an spot on 98.6 Fahrenheit could be suspicious, and getting his temperature that high or higher would require a measureable immune response. Sure, thanks to his time among the Licinians Aldis could force his body to act like it was fighting off an infection, but getting his temperature any higher than it was and his blood tests would show an elevated white blood cell count. It would be bad enough for ORDA to bench or isolate him because he appeared sick, but far worse once someone wondered why he technically wasn’t running a fever. 

Anyway, a cocked eyebrow was all Aldis received. It was well within normal, _human_ variation and not enough to raise suspicion. 

Then came the questions about drug allergies. Dr. Sheppard worked his way through the list including a few questions Aldis hadn’t expected, such as, was he allergic to latex, kiwi, avocados, or mangoes, and Aldis was left wondering if maybe ORDA had picked up on something the Naiians hadn’t. Did Naiians have a statistically higher rate of latex-related allergies? It wouldn’t surprise him if it were true. 

When it came to the question about Sulfa drugs, Aldis answered truthfully. After all. Dr. Sheppard would be checking and testing and readily able to verify... 

Dr. Sheppard’s reaction was immediate. He scowled and tutted, set down his notepad and pen and retrieved a tablet from one of the surrounding desk drawers, fingers tapping furiously. “I see, he murmured, and how long have you had that allergy?” he asked. 

“Since I was a little kid,” Aldis shrugged. “Maybe even since I was born. I—I’m not sure when I was first treated with them, but whenever it was, the doctor figured out I was allergic right away. Haven’t had any since.”

 

If only Aldis knew what the doctor was thinking... or even what had captured his attention. “Is, is something wrong?” Aldis asked at last.

“No, not wrong, just a minor caution. A yellow flag, if you will.”

 _Great. We’re already at yellow alert_ , Aldis thought bitterly. “Was it something I said?”

“Your allergy to sulfa drugs. That’s an allergy that can be caused by the infection. Combined with your temperature—”

“My temperature?” queried Aldis.

“It’s very slightly low,” Dr. Sheppard admitted.

“What does that mean?” Aldis asked, mentally shivering at the ominous undertones in Dr. Sheppard’s words.

Dr. Sheppard tutted again. “Well, we shall see.”

Aldis was expecting some sort of explanation. But the doctor didn’t look up again. He punched something into his tablet and turned back to the tray. 

“Hmmm... Time for another test I think,” was Dr. Sheppard’s reply. He was still tapping at his tablet, fingers gliding wildly over the surface. He gave no indication of _what_ the next test would be, nor what were the consequences of the little “yellow alert” Aldis’ allergy had instigated. 

When it became clear answers wouldn’t be coming, Aldis sat back in his seat and did his best to relax, cold metal pressing against his spine, making itself known through the thin wool of his Class As. Figured that ORDA would do its best to make subjects all the more uncomfortable in the testing process. He should have expected them to stoop to include an extra level of psychological warfare. He fidgeted on the seat trying to slide into a more comfortable position without looking like he was fidgeting or uncomfortable. The metal along the edges of the seat dug into his fingers, cold unyielding. Something tickled in the back of his mind.

 _Cold metal..._ It wasn’t cold when he sat down, was it? Maybe it was. _Think, Aldis!_ No, no it definitely wasn’t cold. He’d been quite comfortable when he sat down. Disconcertingly so. But if the seat was cold now... How cold was the air? 

_Fuck!_

It was a test. Obviously it was another test. He should have realized... The more inhumane, Naiian-hating factions of ORDA had always been unreasonably fascinated, no fixated, on temperature compatibility and adaptability, especially on the effects of cold on Naiian physiology. He should have expected this. Hell Jensen _would_ have if only because he—and half his family—had been tortured that way.

 _Not helping!_ he chided himself. 

So there was another test and he had almost failed it. Or had he already failed it? If the chair was this cold, how cold was the air? His pulse was rising, and he’d just be fucking himself over more if he let his panic show. Deep breaths. Stay calm. He had no illusions the dear doctor wasn’t monitoring Aldis’ every bodily function. Why wasn’t his brain working? Was it already too cold?

Panic rising again, he glanced around the room, taking in the doctor’s attire, the fixtures, the walls... None of the equipment was insulated for cold. The doctor was wearing pants and a long sleeved shirt under a full-length lab coat, and he could easily conceal a lightweight layer of insulation under that... but his head and hands were exposed, and those were definitely boring, blue nitrile gloves laying on the table. Those would offer next to insulation and the doctor had taken them off in order to operate his touch screen... which appeared to be an ordinary tablet... not something milspec and heavily insulated, although appearances could be deceiving. 

_Focus!_

There, the doctor’s fingers looked a little pale, and there were goose bumps on his wrists peeking out from under his cuffs. But he wasn’t shivering and he hadn’t been sweating before... His breath wasn’t showing either.

Yet it was cold enough for Aldis’ seat to feel cold? Something didn’t fit. Granted suppressing his Naiian attributes would make him notice the cold faster and he wouldn’t be able to tolerate the same temperature extremes, but there were some things—like his metabolism and healing—he couldn’t turn off. So unless he tried to, he wouldn’t respond to cold like a human. 

So it was cold in the room, colder than it had been, but not so cold a few layers of strategically insulated clothing couldn’t handle it. Dr. Sheppard was clearly adjusting temperature controls on his tablet and...

 _Of course!_ His chair was bolted to the floor. Not just bolted. They were piping coolant into his seat. It explained why the seat was cold enough to notice. So even if the good doctor wasn’t shivering...

Aldis should be. 

He shuddered with nerves. Katie and Genevieve weren’t kidding when they said this was a death trap. 

The doctor’s eyebrow quirked, and Aldis realized Dr. Sheppard was watching him out of the corner of his eye. 

And Aldis had just shivered...

Good. Okay. He could play this. Ease up on the internal temperature control. A human’s temperature would dip slightly under the circumstances, so his could too... and that would free up concentration for more necessary things... like figuring out how cold the fucking chair was, and the room’s ambient temperature.

“Um, ex-excuse me, sir,” he stammered, realizing he had no clue what the doctor’s rank was, if he even had one. “I—is it supposed to be so cold in here?”

Dr. Sheppard turned slowly, still focusing on his tablet.

“I’m not trying to complain, but it feels like someone turned on the AC, like really on... and my chair...” He considered carefully, did the math in his head, and pulled his hands away as if they’d been burned. 32 degrees Fahrenheit, zero Celsius, give or take. “I think my chair’s freezing. Haven’t felt something that unpleasant since I got stuck outside overnight on an op without shelter.” He shivered again for effect, but it was almost natural. He was inwardly freaking out about how close he’d come to fucking up and blowing his cover... still worried he might have already done so. 

“You think it’s cold in here?” Dr. Sheppard asked, his tone suggesting it was a ridiculous assertion. 

And that was to trip him up. As far as ORDA knew Naiians were really lousy judges of temperature especially outside the realm of what most humans found comfy. Throw a Naiian in a room that was 85 degrees and throw them in a room that was 150 and they might not notice the difference. And it was true. _Most_ of the time. But they could learn, and Aldis _had_. Lucky for him. Dr. Sheppard and his superiors didn’t know that. 

“Yeah,” Aldis started. “I’m no expert, but it feels like the air in here’s dropped 15, 20 degrees since we started. Like night in the desert, less humid too. But this chair is freezing.” He let his teeth chatter. “Like ice. Can I stand? Or is this some sort of tolerance training?”

The doctor didn’t respond. He just stood there, facing Aldis, regarding him openly now. 

Aldis felt like a bug under a microscope... or maybe under a magnifying glass a vindictive child was holding over him, hoping he’d catch fire. He tried to stay still, not give, but now that he was aware of how cold the chair was, the part of his brain that still thought in human terms couldn’t ignore it. He wanted to get out.

Aldis shivered again, teeth clacking and clattering. 

Finally, Dr. Sheppard responded. He slapped at his tablet again, streaking one finger across it in a bold stroke, and looked up at Aldis smiling.

Aldis didn’t really have to wonder why. He could feel the cold of the chair growing less intense with each passing second. The air might have been warming too, but that was a lot less noticeable.

“Sorry about that, but we had to be sure,” Dr. Sheppard offered with an amused smile. 

“What? You use temperature manipulation to get people to fess up to having the plague?” Aldis asked. It had come out more bitter and hostile than he had intended, but he supposed it was in character for who he was supposed to be.

“Not exactly, but temperature manipulation can give them away,” the doctor said cryptically. He had finally set down his tablet, though, and his shoulders looked like they were... unclenching for lack of a better word, and slowly easing down from around his ears.  
That meant the temperature was rising and Aldis should probably concentrate on raising his temperature again once he figured out if his chair was warm enough to stop shivering yet. Times like these Aldis missed the old days, back when he was just a normal kid who could play all day in the snow and never get cold. No matter where his dad was stationed they’d always found a little time to take a winter vacation somewhere cold—usually in New England because it was close to his grandparents, but they’d also done Denver, Colorado, Whistler, BC, and twice, the Swiss Alps. It had made the years they were in Hawai’i and other bases with ridiculously monotone weather all the more bearable. He’d loved playing in the snow—skiing, snowboarding, snowball fights, hiking, skating, relaxing. He’d had fun and no one had thought too much about why he and his siblings didn’t get too cold. 

Aldis shivered, involuntarily this time. Thinking about his family at all was an invitation for misery and right now, it was a liability he couldn’t afford.

“Hold out your arm,” Dr. Sheppard ordered. 

“What—” Aldis asked, already complying as he spoke. Years of training were hard to overcome. Of course that could be both good and bad, and in this context... “Ow!” Aldis yelped despite himself, flinching and clutching his arm to his chest. God it _hurt_! And he was bleeding. Deep red blood pouring down his arm in angry rivulets. He felt like he’d been punched, burned, and stabbed all in one. 

The doctor was regarding him, first with disdain that gradually slid into approval. In his hand was a long cylinder, small in diameter with a flared disc at one end and what appeared to be a push button at the other. It was white and sterile and didn’t look out of place in a medical context. In fact it looked more like a sonic screwdriver than any sort of weapon. “What—the fuck—is that?” Aldis asked between pants glaring at the tool as if it might jump up and bite him of its own free will. Deep in his gut he already knew what it was. 

“Just another test. You passed, so try and relax,” Dr. Sheppard said with a nonchalance that set Aldis’ teeth in edge as he set down the tool and returned to his tablet.

“I passed? You shot me with some... some torture stick and it hurt and I’m bleeding, so that means I passed? What kind of test is that?” Aldis asked bitterly, inching back in his seat, trying to put as much space between him and the miniaturized plasma cannon as physically possible. For a moment, he didn’t care if it looked like he was overreacting. Part of him wanted to rise up and strike Dr. Sheppard, let himself go, show who he really was, if only to avenge the hundreds of thousands of humans and Naiians they had tortured with a weapon of genocide. Aldis might be one of the few “lucky” ones who didn’t inherit an allergy to posiphase who was even more fortunate in that he hadn’t been exposed to enough of it yet to know if he’d develop an allergy over time. But the near certainty of his own survival didn’t diminish his instinctive fear of the weapon whose primary use was to torture and exterminate his species.

“This?” Dr. Sheppard held up the mini-plasma cannon. “This is our best tool at detecting and stopping the enemy.” He looked at the device almost lovingly, tossed it once, twice, I the air and set it down. “If you were infected, that wouldn’t have hurt.” Picking up a bottle of saline and dressings, he approached. “It may sting now, but it will heal up quickly enough, and you’ll have a nice souvenir to show your friends.”

Aldis flinched as the doctor’s hands, once more gloved, closed around his arm. Stomach churning he thought back to the soldiers and sailors he’d met since arriving on Earth. Everyone who’d been wearing short sleeves had a small circular scar on their arms. He’d thought it coincidence or maybe some sort of unit-related mark, like at tattoo. Now he knew... And the truth was horrifying. 

Scratch that. He’d might still fail this test. He was willing to bet the ORDA Brass used the scars left behind as a sort of friend or foe indicator... only his scar wouldn’t be as noticeable as a human’s. He’d have to work to emphasize it, slow the healing, even though every fiber of his being itched to make it vanish, to put this mess behind him. 

“Seems like a hell of a test,” he gritted out through the pain, not all of it physical. “D’you ever get false positives?” He glanced up at the doctor, seeing his own reflection in the doctor’s glasses. He looked more wounded than angry, which was probably good. He wouldn’t ask about false negatives. Too dangerous.

“Possibly, but it would be something like one in a million and our other tests would clear up the issue.” Dr. Sheppard didn’t sound particularly convinced or convincing.

And why would he... if he knew even the basics of the biology behind the posiphase allergy he’d understand how unlikely it was for a human to be allergic in the same way. Not impossible, but unlikely... and the doubt it created would probably make ORDA second-guess the other tests. Any human unfortunate enough to have the allergy would probably live under a cloud of suspicion, never free to live their life, a veritable Tyco Celchu. That was, if ORDA let them live. Or if the ostracism and constant suspicion didn’t lead them to take their own life. 

“Right,” Aldis said instead adding a shaky nod that was only half faked. His arm still burned, nerve endings crying out in searing agony. He knew it was better than the alternative, but that didn’t make the experience any less painful.

Dr. Sheppard was back, standing in front of Aldis with what looked like a specimen cup. “Just one more test and I can dismiss you back to your quarters to await the results.” He shook the cup at Aldis.

The room and chair were still cold, but that wasn’t why Aldis shivered. “What—” he started to ask. None of the reports had mentioned urine screening—at least he _hoped_ Dr. Sheppard wanted him to piss in the cup. If it was intended for something else Aldis was beyond screwed. 

“Just a simple urinalysis.” Dr. Sheppard took a step back and peered over his glasses once again. “Surely you’re not claiming a shy bladder? I am sorry but protocol dictates I observe sample collection to ensure chain of custody and avoid tampering.”

 _Yeah because your other procedures are so good at avoiding tampering_ , Aldis thought bitterly. Forget getting tripped up by a cold room, getting caught by pee in a cup was the most embarrassing possible outcome of this entire debacle. How very _Gattaca_ , he thought bitterly. But there really wasn’t anything he could do about it right now, so he stood up, unzipped his fly and did as ordered. He just had to hope whatever tests they were running either wouldn’t give him away either, or he would be able to locate and hack the results before they got transmitted to anyone who mattered. (Mostly he just hoped for the former because even if he could get computer access in his quarters he was willing to bet ORDA was smart enough to keep these records on a closed system. Besides, he was decent, maybe even good, when it came to technology, but he was no hacker, and he was certainly no Genevieve.)

Dr. Sheppard took the filled sample cup from Aldis and left the room without a word taking his tablet with him. He didn’t dismiss Aldis or tell him where to go, so Aldis stayed put, returning to the hard metal chair rather than pacing or investigating his surroundings. He knew they were watching him, probably listening in too... ORDA had always monitored its soldiers constantly, some would say excessively, and it was doubtful the organization would have become any _less_ paranoid in the intervening years. It was impossible to give them _no_ data, so he settled for providing as little data as possible. He sat and waited and meditated as much as he could without looking like he was meditating.

~~~

**May 2015—ORDA Training Facility, Undisclosed Location, Earth**

It was a Thursday when they first took him to “training.” It was on General Bellman’s orders, Misha knew it, and it wasn’t _really_ training as in, the training he was receiving wasn’t Basic Training or any other standardized military training program. He also wasn’t training _with_ anyone else. However much they might trust him or think he was ready—or whatever terminology they were using to rationalize Misha’s continued existence to themselves.

He really had to stop thinking of everyone he interacted with as “they.” He was starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist. Or what he thought he remembered conspiracy theorists sounded like. Maybe there was a movie? Anyway, imagined or not, Misha knew it wasn’t exactly healthy to lump everyone that wasn’t him or a handful of fellow patients into one giant undifferentiated group.

But try as he might, he couldn’t seem to think of ORDA and her officers as anything but. He had once been a part of the organization. He had once been a military officer; he understood that intellectually, just like he understood he had been… changed. He had betrayed them. He had nearly died. He had been in some sort of limbo for a while, years, at least _a_ year, apparently. And now they were trying to trust him again, bring him back into the fold. But he had no memory and everyone was being overly cautious.

 _They_ were ostensibly worried because of Misha’s Swiss-cheese memory and the extensive alien biotechnology modifications that enabled him to live. Humans—or at least _ORDA’s_ brand of humans were, somewhat ironically for interplanetary explorers—extremely xenophobic. So, as if Misha’s past as a mind-warped, alien plague bearer wasn’t enough, his other… _abnormalities_ tended to send them scurrying. Misha understood that. He did, but he couldn’t shake the nagging, niggling feeling deep in his gut that there was a bigger reason. Something else. Something _more_ , and something in particular about him that had everything and nothing to do with his former life and former rank and who he used to be.

Even then, Misha could understand why they might not want to make him a soldier again, let again trust him with a command. They would be perfectly reasonable to find a nice quiet hole to stuff him in—maybe not a prison, _per se_ , but someplace they could keep watch over him, where he wouldn’t be able to get into much trouble—or to _cause_ much trouble. Someplace they could ask him questions in case his memory ever came back. Someplace they could be confident the Resistance wouldn’t get their hands on him to ask their own questions.  
He was like Ty—Tycho? someone or other. He was a character in a book, Misha was pretty sure anyway. Maybe one of those books his husband had liked? That would explain the vague almost-memory. Being treated like a ticking time bomb, a sleeper agent, that was what Misha expected.

But it wasn’t what he got.

The order to send him away never came. Now that he was relatively strong and had enough of a sense of basic human knowledge that he could more or less function like a “normal” person, they were training him.

Just, all by himself.

General Bellman didn’t train him personally. Nor did Dr. Hanniger work with him on his day-to-day functioning and issues. But they might as well have for all the attention he was getting.

Major Day led his training team, with ample assistance from 1st Lt. Mirakimi and a half a dozen or so specialists of various varieties who were supposed to test and train Misha on everything from diplomacy to protocol to marksmanship. Dr. Markinson was in charge of Misha’s psychological condition with a small army of psychiatrists and psychologists at his beck and call. Then there was Lt. Colonel Adams who was supposedly in charge of close quarters combat, but who really seemed to be tasked with being Misha’s personal Yoda. Well, that and giving him an individualized preview of SERE training. Then there were the medical doctors and staff—pulmonary specialists, physiatrists, orthopedists, neurologists, physical therapists, dieticians… the list went on and on. Misha had thought he’d been poked and prodded to excess while he’d still been under lock and key, but now that ORDA was starting to let him out into the world (or at least out of his little corner of the base), he felt like they’d been ignoring him.

Misha couldn’t take a piss, eat a snack, or clear his throat without someone scowling, documenting it, and asking him questions. He supposed in time he’d get used to it… then again, maybe not. It wasn’t like he really had much choice in the matter.

When he stopped to think about it though, it seemed like ORDA had invested an inordinate number of people in rehabilitating him. How could they possibly justify the effort and expense for one man?

He asked Major Day the first real day of training. She and Lt. Mirakimi had accompanied Jensen to an outdoor range of sorts. It wasn’t one of the regular ranges ORDA used for weapons training, but more of an enormous open field somewhere in middle-of-nowhere, Texas. There was a steep, obviously artificial berm at the far end of the field, and circular hay bales dotted the expanse in between. Some of the bales had be draped with large bulls-eye archery targets. Others had silhouettes—human and alien—on them. There were metal targets at various distances for handgun practice, and dummies set up, he supposed for knife fights. 

Major Day was trying to run Misha through some of what she called “basic” agility drills, combat stances, and the like, and Misha was flailing—and failing—like a fish out of water.

It seemed no matter what he tried or how much he focused, his body couldn’t duplicate the motions Day was showing him.

“Don’t you think this is a bit… excessive?” he asked, biting his lip as he picked himself up off the ground for the fifth time in a row. Major Day had him running through kicks and blocks. He would throw a series of roundhouse kicks, which Day would block and deflect as she stepped backwards and out of the way, and then they would repeat—Day kicking with Misha blocking and walking backwards. It was supposed to be _easy_ , very basic Karate, barely worthy of a yellow belt, a drill Misha—the old Misha—had done tens of thousands of times before. Only his body couldn’t seem to work it. He could kick, but not quickly, and switching legs, especially quickly, just tripped him up. He could block, or walk backwards, but not both at the same time, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to _glide_ the way Major Day was. Trying to move his feet through an ark just tripped him, and his block wound up missing her kick, meaning he took the full brunt of it to his sternum, and went down like a ton of bricks.

“You know the saying, ‘practice makes perfect.’ And frankly, the way you’re having trouble, you need all the practice you can get,” Day quipped. “Now come on, again.” She beckoned Misha towards her with her hands.

Misha froze, staring at her dumbly. “What? Oh, no, not _that_?” he said hastily. “I get it; I suck. I need all the help in the world. That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean this—” he made a sweeping gesture with his hands. “You. Me. Mirakimi. The shrinks, the docs, everyone. This field. Why is ORDA using an entire team, no several teams, taking all their time and resources and using it to rehab one person? I don’t get it. I mean, why would they ever trust me. I don’t remember anything. I’m not the same guy I was before. I’m not their officer… and from what I understand, I betrayed them pretty badly so…” He let his voice trail off as his eyes wandered to a glint in the distance. Sunlight reflecting off something metal… like the hood of a vehicle. Someone else was there _watching_ him, yet _another_ person devoted to ship Misha. “Why? Why me? Why all this?”

“Protecting our investment. ORDA spent a lot of resources. Time, money, manpower, training you the first time. If we can get that back, it saves the investment,” Day answered. 

He could tell she didn’t believe it. 

It still didn’t answer his question of why _Bellman_ seemed obsessed with getting him back in the field, back in command.

~~~

**May 2015—ORDA Intake and Processing Center, Norfolk, Virginia, Earth**

After a good half hour, an SF showed up at the door with orders for Aldis to follow. 

Aldis complied, gleaning as much information as he could about his minder and their surroundings with his necessarily limited senses. The SF, a young man in his early 20s at least a few years younger than Aldis, was definitely human, and from what Aldis could tell, had always been human. There were none of the telltale behaviors or body language to suggest he was a “cured” Naiian, and nothing to suggest he was a mod either. It was possible the SF had been a Naiian and not known it... but _no_ , their intel suggested that even those who hadn’t realized what they were, who hadn’t been aware of their telepathy related abilities, still wound up with memory holes and other... glitches. The “therapy” ORDA provided left its mark, and this kid had none of the signs. 

Besides, Aldis didn’t believe ORDA would ever trust a Naiian, even one they’d mutated and stripped of their identity as part of the “conversion” process with the responsibility of guarding individuals of unknown gene status.

The human guard led Aldis to a secure room with a bed, desk, dresser, and tiny bathroom equipped with a sink, toilet, and shower. The bed linens and towels were standard barracks-issue and there was a spare set of regulation sweats, and a t-shirt and boxers for sleeping. Everything except the desk chair—which was a lightweight flexible plastic—was bolted to the floor. The shower had a door instead of a curtain, and the towels seemed like they’d rip, shred, long before they did anything useful.

The SF, who never provided his name and whose uniform didn’t list it either, told Aldis to stay put until he was retrieved in the morning, and offered to take his uniform to have it dry cleaned overnight.  
Aldis hastily undressed, changing into the provided sleepwear. After he handed over the soiled uniform, he sank down onto the bed with a sigh. He’d been right, of course, ORDA was far too paranoid to even think of letting a subject having access to anything remotely technological. He still had his phone, but there was no network access, not even some secure Wi-Fi he could try to hack into.

Frustrated and nervous, Aldis grudgingly settled into bed his senses primed, taking in every noise and fluctuation. Eventually he drifted off although the sleep that followed was anything but restful. He had to maintain enough awareness to keep his Naiian neurotransmitters in check.

When he finally awoke several hours later, it was to an empty room and another SF pounding on the door. 

“Coming,” he called out, rolling into a seated position and slowly rising to his feet. He took a deep breath, steadying himself. He let his control ease just enough that the neurotransmitter levels ticked up... if they tested his blood now he might get caught, but he wasn’t so... blind, well mentally isolated. He could tell the SF was human without looking and he didn’t sense any other sentient beings nearby, so maybe this wasn’t a total disaster...

The pounding sounded again. 

“Coming!” Aldis called again, louder this time, checking the time on his cell phone. 0445. It _was_ early. He hoped that wasn’t a bad sign. He took another two deep breaths, pushing his fears out of his mind and finding his center. He was as prepared as he could be under the circumstances. His symbiote was still safely embedded in his bag where he could use it in a pinch... well if he could get his levels up fast enough. His fingers itched to touch the place on his side where it was supposed to be, but he pushed that aside, crossed the room in three strides and stood in front of the door. 

He was pretty sure he couldn’t open it from the inside, but the SF in the other side didn’t seem too want to open it until he was visible through the door’s small window. 

“Good morning?” he asked as the door opened outward.

The SF saluted him, so he returned it before graciously accepting the dry cleaned uniform she held out to him. She was a little older than the kid from yesterday, closer to Aldis’ age, maybe even a little older, and she moved with an air of competency Aldis hadn’t seen in years. Whoever this SF was, she was ORDA, old school ORDA and had been for years, quite possibly her entire career. The familiarity tugged at something in the back of Aldis’ mind, trying to set him at ease, blow past or bowl over all the defenses he had in place. 

“Good morning sir. If you will please get dressed, I’m supposed to escort you to breakfast and then to your first briefing. You schedule has been bumped up,” she added.

Aldis nodded his head towards the bathroom. “If you don’t mind, I’ll be five minutes.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Unless we don’t have that much time?”

She tapped at her ear once, then twice back. 

_Ear piece_ , he realized.

“That will be acceptable,” she confirmed and stepped back letting the door close between them.

Four minutes and fifty-eight seconds later he was back in front of the door hair curled tightly against his scalp, his skin still water-damp his bag packed and at the ready should he need it. 

“It’s unlocked,” the SF called through the door. 

He reached out and pushed, and sure enough, the door opened without a protest. “Do I need my bag?” he asked, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder, but resisting the urge to check and ensure the pack was still there. 

“No, we’ll stop by to get it before you ship out. For now, we’re headed to the mess.”

Aldis nodded in acknowledgment and stepped out into the hall, letting the door close behind him with a click. Of course this meant someone would search his bag while they were out, maybe even take it away, swap it with a different one, or install a tracking device, hidden cam or some other means of keeping tabs on his movements. It would be okay though. The symbiote would not be found, of that he was confident. Besides, it had its own tracker. He had people who would get it back to him if they were separated, and his hormone levels were low enough he could go a week without contact without experiencing symbiote withdrawal and several weeks after that before the symptoms started to get serious. He knew. He’d tested and trained and fought and improved and knew all his hard and soft limits. He understood what his body would respond and how to get the most out of it. Those aspects of this situation were not virgin territory. It would be fine. 

Still knowledge and acceptance did nothing to ease the knot in his belly. But he had bigger issues, different concerns. “So,” he said to the SF, wishing he knew her name. “Is there any chance you can tell me when I should know the results of the screening?”

She looked over at him, expression suggesting he’d asked a very stupid question. “You’ve already been cleared. The door to your quarters doesn’t open until you’re cleared.” 

Something about her word choice made Aldis think when she said it wouldn’t open, she meant it wouldn’t open. Not for him, and not for her or anyone else on the outside. He thought back to the cell... there was water from the bathroom sink, but no food, no medicine, but no slot in the door to allow those items to be passed through. “What if I’d been infected? Or required further testing?”

“Medical has protocols and means for neutralizing and treating security threats,” she said ominously. “That’s all you need to know.”

It was true, but in ways the SF probably didn’t intend... Aldis knew ORDA—what it had been—and he was starting to know what it was like now. Even in the “good old days” ORDA had routinely stooped to depths that would make even hardened 21st century pessimists blanch. He’d seen the room; it didn’t take much imagination to work it out. They’d send gases in through the ventilation system. If they wanted to “cure” someone they may have figured out an airborne way to administer the treatment. Medical likely had an override code for the doors and probably a back door in and out through the bathroom. The wall behind the mirror didn’t seem to have anything attached...

Aldis’ mind wanted to drift, but that was dangerous, unacceptable. The SF’s background made him comfortable, set a part of his mind at ease, but _Allan_ the person he was supposed to be, should be disoriented, unsettled, curious, but with restraint. So he let go of his musings, stopped wondering about what would have happened if he had failed the tests, and took in their surroundings.

They were underground. He had suspected it yesterday with what little he had seen. It wasn’t the lack of windows, but the heaviness of the place. He could almost feel the rock and earth pressing down around him, suffocating in its solidity and mass. It reminded him of ORDA’s main base in Seattle, but this wasn’t there. Here the ceilings were relatively low and the walls were stark unadorned concrete colored an earthy beige. Everything screamed utilitarian practicality. The passageways were narrow and angular, bending and branching out of site. 

Like a warren...

It made Aldis think of the various rabbit warrens in _Watership Down_... it would definitely remind Jensen of Stargate.  
Wherever the SF was leading him it wasn’t down or up—there were no stairs or elevators or ramps. Just more flat tunnels. After what had to be five minutes of walking in silence, she led him around one more corner and through a set of double swinging doors. 

The light on the other side was blinding. Full-spectrum lamps hung from the ceiling 10 meters above bathing the mess hall in fake daylight and creating a sense of vastness. Serving lines wrapped around three sides of the large rectangular room while long rectangular tables filled the space in between. There were an awful lot of people gathered for just before 5 in the morning.

“As I said, you’re on a tight schedule, but I thought you might want to eat, especially since you didn’t get any dinner last night.” She glanced at him expectantly as she ushered him into the closest line. 

“I didn’t really notice,” Aldis shrugged. “I was undercover for a long time. Didn’t always have reliable access to food or meals on any kind of schedule. And then the time difference between there and here... I’m so jet lagged my body doesn’t really know what time it is.” It wasn’t even a lie. “I’m hungry now,” he added, dropping a bowl of cream of wheat on his plate for emphasis. 

Of course they hadn’t fed him. ORDA understood on some level that Naiians, particularly when manipulating wormholes, tended to experience hypoglycemia. Blood sugar fluctuations were a side effect of their highly adaptable physiology. Lock them in a room without food until the results of the testing are in and voila, weakened Naiians increasingly likely to collapse if they attempted to use their abilities. Luckily he hadn’t tried to extend himself and years of training had helped him to balance out his blood sugar.

Of course Terran food wasn’t helping right now. Sure there were a fair number of foods of Earth-origin on Aurora, and they were very popular among Terran refugees. But for the portions of the population who were from Aurora... or at least from Miradoma, and for those who’d spent years trekking around the galaxy with ORDA, it wasn’t all that popular. Add to that Aldis’ two years spent living and training in the Licinian underground, and well... typical American cafeteria fare was not really approaching “digestible” as far as Aldis’ appetite was concerned. The mess was serving Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans, and the combination of sight and smell threatened to overwhelm him.

He dipped his spoon into the gloppy cream of wheat, out the spoon into his mouth, and swallowed without chewing. _Ugh!_ he gagged, fought it, suppressed a shudder and kept the food down. It wasn’t the taste—unadulterated as it was, the cereal was actually rather pleasant. Simple, clean, unoffending. It was the texture-temperature-consistency continuum that had Aldis’ stomach contents threatening to reappear. He was grateful they didn’t have grits on the menu today. Those always reminded him of his grandmother. Not that she served grits all that often, but whenever his family had visited her in Savannah, grits had been around in all forms and combinations and he’d invariably managed to have at least a breakfast or two that served them. Tasting them now would simultaneously ruin a host of happy childhood memories while also making him think of his family, which—no... Just no.

So he stomached the cream of wheat and started in on the fruit he’d gathered—a banana and canned peaches—and settled himself.  
Across the table from him, the SF was sitting and keeping watch, but so far she hadn’t eaten or spoken again.

When he was about half way finished, he braved the silence and asked one of the questions that had been pressing on his mind since the day before. “Can I ask about the tests?” he asked, careful with his word choice, mood, etc., hoping he didn’t sound too curious. 

“Ask and I will answer if possible,” she replied.

“I understand most of the tests... I mean, I can see their purpose. But what I don’t get is at the end, the doctor did a urine screen, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what that would show that the blood test and DNA test wouldn’t... It kinda felt like he was maybe just seeing how compliant I would be, and if that’s all it is, I guess that makes sense, but...” He shrugged because really, what else was there to say? 

Luckily the SF didn’t seem put off by his inquiry, nor did she appear suspicious. Instead she smiled. “That’s right... You wouldn’t know. All that time under cover...” she muttered to herself before turning to Aldis. “There are drugs... I don’t know how they came into being or any of the rest of it, and that’s all classified so don’t expect to find out, but there are drugs out there that ameliorate the most obvious aspects of the plague. They don’t cure it, just treat the symptoms, but that means that some of the other tests will come back clean even when someone’s infected.” Her smile grew bigger, but the basic urine screen, the thing is as the drugs get metabolized and break down in your system the metabolites will show up on the urinalysis.”

“O—oh,” Aldis replied with a curt nod. So clearly ORDA knew about the many uses of procogitol. He was really glad Jensen hadn’t tried to do this. In addition to how no one would possibly _not_ recognize him, this was just one more way Jensen would undoubtedly get caught. “But if the symptoms are treatable, doesn’t that mean those people would be safe?” he asked, letting his voice trail off as the SF’s forehead wrinkled in disapproval.

“The drugs treat the most obvious symptoms, but there are still cognitive effects and the risk someone could stop taking the drugs or they could become ineffective.” She shuddered, then skewered Aldis with a particularly hostile look. “If someone’s taking these drugs it means they’re trying to evade detection. They’re avoiding the cure. That in itself makes them untrustworthy... Makes it far too great a risk. But the thin is even knowing about the drugs, having access to them, these aren’t medications you can buy OTC or that your family doctor can prescribe. They’re drugs the enemy uses.”

“So anyone who tests positive is someone who’s not just infected, but is actively working against us,” Aldis observed. 

She nodded.

“I had no idea...”

“You missed a lot, being undercover when you were.” She said it almost wistfully, as if Aldis’ apparent ignorance was an innocence to be treasured. “You’re going to have to watch yourself. Anyone who figures out you’re not up on the finer points of the war will try to use it against you. If the enemy has operatives in our ranks—”

“You think they do, even with the testing?” Aldis asked with genuine surprise.

“Let’s just say they enemy are devious bastards who aren’t in their right minds... Sooner or later someone will slip through the cracks... Or someone will develop sympathies. We can’t be too careful.”

“Is that the official position?”

“Let’s just say it’s an educated opinion,” she replied.

~~~

**Early June 2015—ORDA Strategic Operations Base—Texas, Earth**

They decreed him a graduate of individual training on June 1st. He got 24 hours to gather up his shit and he was on a military flight back to Texas. Of course now he was living on base instead of in the hospital, and he was ostensibly commanding this unit (although Bellman had reared her ugly head for ten seconds upon his arrival to remind him to listen to Major Hoechlin until he was up to speed), but it felt like being right back where he’d started. Only this time, he was on the other side of the fence. Crazy as it was, ORDA seemed to _trust_ him.

Day in, day out, he trained with his new unit. Learning or relearning, it didn’t matter. Time seemed to bend and blur until Misha couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been here, now. The consummate soldier. Obedient. Loyal. Determined. Where others challenged themselves, Misha exacted perfection. Where others were competitive, Misha was on top. He labored and suffered until he doubted his own sanity, but in the end, no one would question his dedication. He was one with the cause, a true believer.

Or at least that’s what he wanted them to think. The trick was figuring out if they believed it.

Without losing himself.

At night, lying alone in his bunk, listening to the snores and breathing of the others in his unit, his mind wandered. He’d thought it odd that they bunked the unit together, officers and enlisted alike, but they were a small tactical group, and ORDA encouraged close bonds. 

His imagination and memory kept bringing him back to a book he didn’t remember reading. Storm trooper indoctrination. Erasing a person’s identity and sense of self in favor of promoting harmony, unquestioning, unyielding… he was pretty sure it was a _Star Wars_ book he’d read, or Jensen had read to him. The heroes had fought off the brainwashing eventually, but not until it caused all sorts of problems. Something about Luke Skywalker stuck in a doomed ship, concussed, slowly suffocating from lungs scarred by inhaled coolant, and fighting off gangrene with the Force thanks to axe-wielding Gammoreans. There might have been a love story with a ghost involved too, although Misha wasn’t sure if that was still the same book, but it sounded about right. 

That was him… He was Luke, or the bitter, a little-worse-for-the-wear, modern day equivalent without any Force powers. 

Only the brain washing wouldn’t wear off and he had to fight each day to hold on to what he knew, and he didn’t even remember who he was. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure if what he was fighting for was real. The holes and scars had been plugged and filled with alien (and secret human) technology that ORDA used as a tether, a leash. He would never be free, could never go out in the world… or at least that was what they wanted.

 _They take you out, and stuff you back in. Put you back together the way_ they _want._

But far from the blank slate he’d seemed when he first regained consciousness, more and more of Misha’s life had found its way through, slotting into place. He knew who he was (even when he didn’t), and he knew they were wrong (even when he knew nothing but what they told him). In enough time, he was confident he’d be able to expose what ORDA had done, reach out to the Naiian government, and provide a way out for himself and the thousands like him who found themselves trapped in ORDA’s web of lies.

It was a long plan. Misha still didn’t really remember being a Colonel, and ORDA certainly wasn’t about to take the training wheels off, until they were confident in his abilities and loyalty. Until the soldiers trusted him, he had no hope of achieving his goals. So he made sure to tell the extra-hateful jokes about Naiians, laugh in all the right places, and ascribe to the beliefs ORDA foisted upon all its troops. Every morning, Misha woke up wondering how he could keep living the lie. How long would it take before he started to believe what he was saying, until he forgot how he really felt? The deeper into training he became, the less contact he had with Agam or the others from the hospital. The harder it was to keep in touch with what was real…

But he had to. Because it was the only way he was ever getting close to Jensen—or Jensen’s memory—again. The only chance he had at maybe fixing what ORDA had broken in his universe.


	7. Between Time and Space

**Late June 2015—Nullspace**  
"They're killing us, you know." Misha stood beside him, just behind Jensen's left shoulder. "And when we don't die, they experiment on us, strip us of our identities, our birthright."

"I know," Jensen said with a defeated sigh. "God, I know, but I don't know what to do." Every day, the knowledge ate at him. "You would have done something by now." Jensen felt like a failure, a disappointment, a lousy replacement.

"Maybe, maybe not," Misha said softly in his ear. "Being in command is never easy. The choices you are forced to make and the actions you take--or don't--when the choices are stripped from you, they gnaw at you. Keep you awake at night, burning your soul with self-doubt."

Jensen turned to Misha. He appeared more solid than ever today, somewhere in the past month he'd tripped over the line from ephemeral and now looked like a CG facsimile. Jensen held out his hand, inviting Misha to wrap his fingers around it. 

Misha complied, aiming a sad smile at the hairsbreadth of empty space between their hands. As close as they were, there might as well have been an unbridgeable chasm separating them. Solid as Misha appeared, touch was still elusive.

"I've been sleeping, you know that, you see me here enough. Besides, you would have figured something out by now. You wouldn't be impotent to save your own people."

"You only sleep to see me; that's not getting you any rest," Misha said, squeezing Jensen's hand, and Jensen almost believed he could feel it. "And I'm not sure I would have figured it out." His expression was troubled, and Jensen believed for the first time maybe this catastrophe wasn't all on him; maybe it wasn't just his inefficacy and woeful inexperience as a leader that had led them to this moment. 

"I can't help thinking, if you and General Ferris were here..." Jensen shook his head. "I'm failing us... I'm a fraud, and I'm letting us die. They only follow me 'cause I'm your husband."

"That's the lawyer in you talking. Always wracked with self-doubt, intimidated by everything you don't know." He cocked his head, "Didn't they ever teach you guys what you do know is impressive and your ability to recognize the contours of what you don't is invaluable."

"I think that would make us too cocky. Enough lawyers are already egomaniacs... We don't need any extra help," Jensen said with fondness. Ah, thinking of himself as a lawyer... When had his self-perception changed? 

"They follow you because you understand. You know what it's like to be lost, thrust into a world you don't know, to have everything change out from under your feet. That gives you legitimacy." He focused on the scene outside the viewport. "You care. You won't leave anyone behind--"

Jensen started to protest, tugging his hand away from Misha. "I left--"

Misha shook his head. "I stayed. You didn't leave me. I couldn't let you and everyone else get caught. I was in command; it was my call to make."

"I would have found a way to get us all out of there," Jensen said solemnly, his voice barely audible over the groan of the ship's engines.

"You know, the whole John Sheppard complex," he turned and winked, "always turned me on." He held Jensen's eye for a long moment until his amused expression morphed into something dark and serious. Misha raised a hand and pressed it against the forcefield-reinforced glass. There was no tell-tale violet glow outlining the pressure points created by his hand impacting the field; just one more reminder that even in this fabricated dreamworld, Misha wasn't real, or wasn't really there. Voice haunted, he said, "You would have sacrificed yourself, and I couldn't let that happen."

"I thought you said command was about having to make the difficult decisions, and ability to separate personal emotions from the logical, dispassionate response a situation requires?" Jensen queried with genuine confusion, crossing his arms defensively across his chest.

"Sacrificing myself?" Misha shook his head, "That wasn't a personal decision. Our people needed you more than me, and I couldn't force one of the others to stay behind... It would have undermined our credibility with the refugees and damaged any hope we had of uniting our people in the future... and..." Misha's voice trailed off, as he let his forehead rest against the glass, looking utterly defeated. 

"And what?" Jensen asked hesitantly. The nervous dive and flip of his stomach told him with terrifying he really didn't want to know the answer, and definitely wasn't prepared to hear it.

"The distraction wouldn't have worked with anyone else. The General wanted you or me, and only you or me... For anyone else she would never have risked her people to capture. Sending anyone else would have been pointless suicide--no, murder."

"The general?" Jensen queried, confused, and almost getting lost in the meanders and eddies of Misha's answer. Misha didn't seem to hear him, so Jensen latched onto the next point of confusion. "Wait, what do you mean about only wanting you or me and...capture?"

"You know we were ranked for our abilities, our _value_ and inherent alienness."

"We were at the top of that list," Jensen recalled with a shudder. Hands grabbing him, keeping him in the freezing cold; no food; no shoes; derisive, hateful voices calling him "it," refusing to see him as a sentient being worthy of respect, babbling with glee about the samples they would take of his brain tissue... He blinked, hard, and focused on the world outside the viewport, the here and now of his dream reality. He wasn't in that place anymore. Of all the fates that had befallen him, that was one horror he had been spared.

"We were there for our _importance_ as much as our genetics," Misha continued, rolling his head sideways to glance at Jensen, his ghostly forehead still pressed to the glass. "What we knew, who and what we had access to, the psychological blow our-- _destruction_ and deconstruction--would strike on our people. Those were all factors. To Lehne, the genetics were paramount. He wanted to know how to kill us, and use us to save his own skin, one way or another. But her goals are different. Our death isn't enough, and her lust for our powers is much more central--she never liked the monopoly we had. Doesn't want anyone elevated over humans... Not that we are, but that's not how she sees it. For her, the psychological devastation, the fodder to demoralize... that's far more important, and it's why no one else on the list would do. She was bound and determined to have one of us, and I could get what we needed by letting her think she had what she wanted."

"Misha..." Jensen gulped around the growing lump in his throat, his mouth suddenly dry. "What are you saying? Who is _she_? It's not General Ferris is it?" He could barely breathe around the lump in his throat. His chest felt tight and heavy, as if a moody elephant had taken up residence there without him noticing. He was having an asthma attack _in his dream_ , which was such mind fuckery, he didn't know how to respond. Did that mean he was having an attack in his sleep? Or was it a purely psychological response with no physical basis, his mind's way of emphasizing to him how upsetting the idea was.

"No, of course she isn't Ferris. Sam died protecting us. She never broke, she never faltered. She never betrayed us, and kept all our secrets no matter how hard or how long they tortured her. She kept her mind even when she was dying from withdrawal." Misha sounded so sure and so utterly devastated and _awestruck_ , Jensen believed him instantly. Somehow, that was the truth.

But it didn't answer Jensen's question, and it left him feeling more lost than ever.

"She's the one pulling all our strings. Directing the war behind the scenes. Her advisors don't know what she really wants, so they don't understand how her game fits together. She's the boogeyman. She isn't real until she's taking you apart." The words tumbled from Misha's lips without pause, as if from a trance. His eyes grew distant, and he seemed to be staring _through_ Jensen... Which was just wrong, because Misha was the ghost, not Jensen. As suddenly as it had come on, the spell broke and Misha was back in the here and now of the obscenely vivid dream. "I know who she is, but _I_ don't know it. The knowledge, it's from what I am when I'm not here. I'm aware enough to know it exists, but I don't know how to carry it across to this side," he admitted with defeat.

Jensen's mouth hung open in shock as he tried to process the information. What could it mean? Who could she be? And how was any of this possible--how was it he was talking to a ghost in his dreams and that ghost was giving detailed answers to questions Jensen hadn't even known to ask? Rather than voicing that mess, which would get him nowhere, he followed the one implication that sprang to the forefront ahead of all the others. "Are you saying," he asked in a hushed tone as he stepped toward Misha and mirrored his position against the viewscreen, letting the tingle of the forcefield ground him while its violet light glowed around him. "Did--did they experiment on your body? Is that what you're saying?"

Misha's expression was anguished when he replied. "I--I don't know for sure, I just know it didn't end the way it was supposed to."  
The ship, viewport, and world below swam in front of Jensen's eyes, and he felt like he was tumbling. Grief and regret barreled into him like a runaway freight train. He was crying, crying and shaking so hard he was falling toward the deck.

What happened next came so fast Jensen would never entirely sort it all out in his mind. One moment he was dropping like a marionette with cut strings, the decking rushing up to meet him, and the next... Misha moved to catch him, the same thing he would have done when he was alive, only Misha wasn't real, and this was a dream. The next moment, Jensen's tumble stopped abruptly, even though he was sure his legs couldn't--weren't-- holding him. He could almost feel the pressure of Misha's hands on his body where they should have touched, and when Jensen looked down at where they were almost touching, he saw--and felt--a frisson of electricity pass between them. He gave a little surprised gasp as the spark seemed to strike at his core, sending a tingling warmth washing through him. Eyes locked on the placement of Misha's hands, he realized he shouldn't be able to feel anything, well his physical body shouldn't be able to anyway. Glancing up, he met Misha's eyes and saw the same surprise reflected there. "I felt that, he said in a half-swallowed whisper. 

Somehow this noncontact contact steadied Jensen until he regained control of his legs enough to lever himself back to his feet.

"Whoa," Misha said breathily, his expression more genuinely surprised than Neo's ever was. "Maybe there's some merit to those stories about ghosts concentrating hard enough and being able to touch something after all."

Jensen's grief and guilt momentarily overpowered by surprise, they started flooding back in once he was standing again. Overwhelmed, he broke eye contact with Misha and turned away. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Hey, hey, look at me," Misha pleaded.

Jensen felt warm pressure on his shoulder and turned back, realizing the warmth was Misha's hand. He focused on Misha's almost-real fingers and spoke. "I should have come back for you; I never should have left you there."

"If you'd come back, they would have gotten you too, and my sacrifice would have been in vain." Misha's voice was gentle, reassuring, laced with all the meaning and connection and understanding they'd shared when he was still alive. It was the same voice Misha had used to talk Jensen down from a psychological ledge more times than he'd like to count, and for a moment while Misha spoke, Jensen could feel _everything_ between them--his own awareness here on this dream-constructed ship, and Misha's-- He was seeing through Misha's eyes, the ship and the deck foggy around him, as if he was experiencing a world through a veil, only in his eyes Jensen almost glowed, he was real and whole and bright, and real for Misha, no fog obscured him, and where Misha's hand touched rested shoulder, the fog that surrounded Misha had almost entirely bled away. Jensen could feel the disconnect too, the other place Misha was, but wasn't, when he wasn't here. It didn't feel like heaven or hell or oblivion, at least not in any way either Misha or Jensen could conceptualize. It was real, but not--shrouded, lost, alien... It felt like an existence and a place they should know or at least be able to comprehend, but the inputs were all wrong. In that moment, Jensen understood and believed. He could feel Misha's pain at the thought of taking Jensen with him, his comfort at knowing Jensen was still out there, still fighting, still looking out for their people. "I couldn't let them take us both," Misha added.

Jensen's awareness shifted again, and he was back in his own head, in his own body, looking back at Misha. "I know you are," he acknowledged, "but the thought of them using you, experimenting..."

"It feels like you're burning from the inside," Misha acknowledged, and Jensen realized Misha did know, because they'd just _shared_ their consciousness. However that was possible between a sleeping man and a memory or ghost. "Our people needed you, and they still do. Your shoes I could never fill--they need you a lot more than me."

“What do you mean our people needed me more?" Jensen asked, searching Misha's eyes, his head cocked to the side in curiosity. He wished he could get inside again, connect, because he could _feel_ the understanding hovering just out of reach.

"I may have started out as a scientist who got drafted and dragged into the military against my will, but I haven't been that guy, an outsider, in a very long time. I can't unlearn what I know, can't shut the blinds on what I've experienced. I've been a soldier for years. I've commanded and fought and been captured and watched my people die, been stuck out there thinking I would die myself, and I lived that life day in, day out for years, all the while understanding as much about myself and who and what I was as I could. I kept my secrets and I made choices because I had to, choices that still make a part of me scream. All that means I don't and will never be able to relate to our people--the scared family members who never knew, the refugees who lived their whole lives thinking they were human, the people scared of the military whose only knowledge of ORDA is as the band of genocidal bullies and thugs who seek their annihilation. They would never be able to trust me, not entirely, and not the way they trust you."

"I'm not like them," Jensen admitted. It had taken a long time, but he'd made his peace with that fact long ago.

"No, you're not, but you're not like me either. You know what that shock and betrayal feels like. You lived with your spouse lying to you every day for years keeping a huge secret from you. You know what it's like to find out you're not who you thought you were, and you've run the gamut of experiences related to that. You've had your identity open doors to worlds and experiences you didn't know were possible, your heritage has mitigated your disabilities and given you new ways to cope... But you've also been tortured, kidnapped, conscripted, hunted, exiled, and betrayed because of who you are, and the same attributes that have saved your life have nasty flipsides that have threatened it. And that's still all new to you. Not so new you haven't accepted it, but new enough you understand the people and they can see that understanding--feel it in you. You've got military experience with plenty of combat and leadership, but where I was elevated in the organization--familiar and accustomed to toeing the line--you know what it's like to be vulnerable in that context, to have to thread the needle between risk and responsibility, to need to bend the rules and fight the hegemony from the inside. Everything I have works against me--I was too entrenched to connect, but you, you and Katie especially, have just the right blend of experience and newness to click."

As the pieces fell into place, Jensen fought the realization. What Misha was saying was true, but it didn't make him feel any better about it. "Just because they needed me more than they needed you didn't mean they wouldn't accept you, or that I didn't need you..." Tears welled in his eyes.

"I know," Misha answered, his eyes looking moist as well, "but there was no other way." 

Jensen wanted protest--there were other tactics they could have tried. They could have held off the pursuers, fixed the trigger and remote detonated the bomb; they could have stood and fought, gone down together, let the others leave; Jensen could have _should have_ detected the trap before Misha was ever caught in it. Should have insisted on backups for the timer, found a way to get something shielded, something that wouldn’t fail…

"They wanted you a lot more than me. Their desire, _hunger_ , for you is obsessive and irrational. If they'd captured you--" Misha didn't need to say it out loud. 

Jensen understood the ramifications and nodded in agreement. 

"Besides, knowing they had to settle for me, knowing how much that pisses them off--I got a lot of satisfaction out of that," Misha chuckled. His own sacrifice had been its own kind of victory over those who would destroy them. “I took a lot of them with me.” Misha shifted his attention to the space beyond the window. "What world is that out there?" he asked, changing the subject.

Jensen smiled, taking in the purple-tinted green and blue globe around which the dream ship orbited. He could see the twinkling of lights from the twilight side of the terminator and felt a warm swell of pride. They were looking down at the capital of the Naiian homeworld. "That's Aurora, our new home."

"Really?" Misha asked peering even closer, "It looks different, even from space."

"It's changed a lot--the cities have really grown with the influx of population, but we've been very careful to keep everything green and environmentally sound." He grinned at Misha, "I think you'd approve. It really is beautiful down there..." Jensen trailed off as the familiar stab of pain lanced through his heart. "I really wish you could see it."

The connection between them intensified for a split second; their consciousnesses didn't merge, but the blending was strong enough Jensen felt a burst of Misha's joy. 

"I can feel how much you love it, your pride, your comfort there, how beautiful it is. Thank you," Misha said with deep sincerity. "Being able to see it through you this way means a lot."

Jensen nodded, wanting to say "you're welcome," but the words got stick in his throat. It was too hard to speak and hold back the flood of tears at the same time. 

"Jensen," Misha exclaimed with dismay after turning to investigate Jensen's protracted silence. His hands flew up towards Jensen's face moving as if to wipe away the tears there, stopping at the last second. 

That just made Jensen cry harder--another reminder that Misha wasn't real.

Undeterred, Misha moved again, completing the task he'd originally set out to do. He brought both thumbs up to sweep across Jensen's cheekbones. It didn't quite work as intended, but as before, Jensen felt a crackle of electricity as Misha's hands ran over his face. The spark seemed to evaporate some of the tears and left Jensen with moist eyes, but a dry face.

"You wanna talk about it?" Misha hedged.

Jensen shook his head emphatically, swiping the back of his left hand across his eyes to wipe away the tears that remained.

"Have you told anyone about these little somnolent encounters?" Misha queried, leaning back and regarding Jensen with slitted eyes.

"No," Jensen admitted, hanging his head in shame.

"Not even Katie or Foalar?" Misha asked, his expression guarded, but his tone hopeful.

"No," Jensen crossed his arms, slipping into the too-familiar defensive posture. "Not even Katie or Foalar," he echoed on a sigh.

Misha frowned, and turned back to the viewport. His expression seemed more worried than disappointed, though, which was a huge relief for Jensen. "But you are still friends with both of them, right? You haven't closed yourself off entirely."

"Still friends. Foalar is my trusted mentor and impromptu therapist. My Yoda," he added with a little chuckle. 

Misha laughed too, his features suddenly much more animated, light seeming to dance in his eyes at the sci-fi reference. "I'd missed that," Misha murmured, mostly to himself, his lips barely moving.

"In fact, most nights when I manage to get to sleep and meet you here, I'm on her flagship," Jensen continued.

"Oh?" Misha asked, throwing Jensen a curious glance.

"The Fropali have continued their support of our people and our government," Jensen explained. "I'm our ambassador, a member of the governing counsel, and our chief diplomat. That means I get to travel... A lot, and with the humans--what's become of ORDA--hunting us, searching for our homeworld, and doing their damnedest to track or block our wormholes, having an ally's flagship to get you from place to place and help conceal your actions is a real help, especially since we have so few ships of our own."

"We have ships?" Misha marveled. "Wait--" his jaw dropped to comic effect and he leaned closer to Jensen. "Did you say you're our people's chief diplomat?"

"Yup, that's me," Jensen confirmed, "among other things anyway--most of us still wear a lot of hats. It's kind of ironic--when ORDA first drafted me, they purposely didn't use me for diplomacy, despite my legal skills because my Naiian gene expression was so strong. Now, I'm leading a nation composed primarily of Naiians, some of them very... talented, and suddenly my strong expression is too precious to risk in frontline combat on a regular basis, so they latch onto my legal skills and appoint me ambassador."

"You're not military at all anymore?" Misha asked in wonderment.

"Oh, I'm still military all right, and I train more now than I ever did before... It's just somehow I've gone from being the John Sheppard type that everyone wants to throw at the problem to magically solve it to being a Jean-Luc Picard who has to break the rules to get on the away team." He chuckled to himself. “They made me a General,” he whispered. “All that stuff Kirk said about not letting them promote you? Turns out he was right.”

Eyes wide as saucers and face gleefully amused, Misha snorted and said, "So taking away your horrible mixed-universe metaphor, you're saying you're Elizabeth Weir?"

"Yup," Jensen said with a genuine smile. "Only so far I've avoided sacrificing myself to the powerful species who want to kill us all and rake over our bodies with nanites." His smile and spirits fell. It was too close an analogy to Misha's sacrifice. And something, _something_ about it, he wasn't sure what, created a niggling seed of doubt, an itch deep in his mind, stretching into that place deep inside where the telepathic center of his being expressed itself, that saw a parallel--there was something important in that analogy. A grain of truth that would unlock many mysteries if only he could figure out what it was.

Instead, while Jensen's mind wandered, Misha spoke pulling him back to his presence in the dream. "So, how long has it been?" He didn't need any more explanation. Jensen knew what he meant.

"A little over two years," he admitted. "You'd be 41, now," he marveled. 

"Ah, but at least you're still younger than me... There's still a chance I've got some kernels of wisdom for you," Misha replied. His voice sounded light, but Jensen could tell it was forced.

"You really don't know what's been going on?" Jensen asked. Seeing Misha's confused, furrowed brow, he added, "With us, with the Naiians, I mean."

"Not really," Misha answered. "Some stuff, I've picked up from you," he made a pointing motion, gesturing back and forth between their heads. "And I seem to know some details about ORDA and the humans... But I'm not sure how I know... The information seems to crop up after I come back here, it's like wherever I go when I'm not here, not me, I can bring a little bit of the knowledge back with me, just not always the important stuff, or the big picture. I’m not sure—it’s like the two sides can’t quite connect the dots."

"I wish I understood how," Jensen admitted out loud, then blushed, ashamed.

"Don't sweat it," Misha's hand hovered above Jensen's shoulder at its customary distance. "I don't know what I am. But when I'm with you, here, I almost feel real."

"You feel real to me too," Jensen admitted, his eyes tearing again. He swallowed hard and clenched his fists at his sides, drawing himself up straighter, and reaching out to the ship around him to ground and steady himself. Dream or not, it still worked. "You feel so real, and sometimes I just miss you so much..." he gave out a shaky sigh, and felt the electrical brush of Misha's ghostly form against him.” At first I thought you were a manifestation of my subconscious--all the understanding I had of you, right down to the telepathic bond we shared, coming together and presenting itself as you, so I could talk things out, feel like I was getting your counsel." He shied away from Misha's searching eyes; they felt too real, too much like how Misha would really look if he were here. "Then I started thinking maybe you were real. You seem to know things I don't--there's information you've told me that checked out that I _know_ couldn't have been buried in my subconscious. The specificity of it made it seem too unlikely to be a good deduction or a lucky guess. Even the clothes I wear--especially when I first met you in here--I didn't remember them. It wasn't like I was flashing back to being in the hospital on M'Nell. It made me wonder if I was talking to your ghost... A part of me that's never gotten over your death, never accepted you were gone, even when I was confronted with the undeniable emptiness of your absence, it--I just want to believe so badly that you're alive." Jensen hung his head in shame.

He waited for Misha to say something, but Misha remained silent, as if sensing Jensen wasn't quite done. "Neither of us believe in ghosts, and as real as you are, if you were _you_ and alive, we wouldn't be having secret rendezvous in my dreams. But it got me thinking, what if we're different? What if the part of you that was telepathically bonded to me still exists _like_ a ghost, an echo of you capable of operating separately from me? Or what if a--recording--of your memories and personality was transferred to your symbiote? So maybe somehow I'm communicating with it? There's so much about our people and how we function that we don't know, that it could be possible--there could be a real, scientific explanation without any need for magic or mysticism or metaphysics." Jensen looked up at Misha with so much hope in his wide eyes, for a moment he believed, all his doubts forgotten.

"It--it is possible," Misha agreed, cocking his head to the side expectantly. "But that doesn't explain why you haven't told anyone." 

Jensen collapsed in on himself as he sighed, listing sideways and falling against the viewport with a 'thud.' He rolled off his right shoulder and pressed his back against the reinforced glass, crossing his ankles and leaning into the viewport for support, ignoring the insistent buzz of the forcefield. "I'm afraid," he admitted.

A glance at Misha confirmed Misha was again expecting a more thorough explanation. So Jensen forced aside his embarrassment and clenched his hands into fists to hide their trembling and pushed on.

"As long as I don't tell anyone, as long as it's just you and me, I can imagine and pretend, and the possibilities are endless. As soon as I tell Katie, at best she's going to start poking around and insisting on observing me, and then she's going to tell me all the possibilities this _isn't_ , and then I'm back to being a lonely widower who can't let go and can't move on and talks to himself in his sleep, only he imagines he's talking to his dead husband." He looked down and kicked at invisible dust on the decking. "And that's if I'm lucky. Katie--well everyone really--was really worried about me for a long time. I didn't exactly cope well when you died." Jensen took a deep breath and leaned his head back against the viewport, letting the tingling sensation override some of the chaos and conflict in his head. "The war and the immediate need to resettle a couple million shocked refugees were the only things that kept me from shutting down, and self-preservation wasn't exactly high on my list of priorities. But... eventually I started to pull out of it and grieve. I thought about what I could do to honor your sacrifice, mostly at Foalar's insistence," he admitted.

This prompted Misha to snort, and Jensen couldn't resist the little smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth.

"Yeah, she's a regular Yoda," Jensen acknowledged, continuing. "I got a little better, and the pain was easier to live with, and Katie started asking me if I ever thought I'd wind up in another relationship--" he turned to meet Misha's perplexed expression. "Don't worry, it's not as weird as it sounds. She wasn't hitting on me; it's just that people started pairing up and settling down and building families, and we got to talking. I admitted maybe, someday I'd want something like that, but not with another Naiian--"

Hurt bloomed in Misha's eyes only for understanding to wash it away a moment later. "I'm sorry," he said gently, "I never wanted to hurt you, being able to share consciousness with you was--"

"It was the best thing in my life, Misha, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I just don't know if I could do it again, especially not when so much of me is still marked with you. It doesn't seem fair to anyone. Anyway..." he trailed off, looking down at his feet again. "If I tell Katie she'll take all the fun out of it and confirm I've just found a really elaborate way of talking to myself. Even if I could still make this," he wagged his pointer finger back and forth between them, "happen, I don't know if I'd get anything out of it--would I still believe the things you tell me if I knew for sure you were a figment of my imagination?" Jensen shook his head, "I don't think so. And more than that, I'd lose this feeling like I got a part of you back. And I don't know if I could take that. I--I feel so selfish and delusional and cowardly, escaping here. I mean, what if you are some kind of echo of yourself that I'm keeping trapped here rather than letting you greet the peace of oblivion, or hell move _on_ , if there is such a thing? But some days wanting to be here is the _only_ way I can sleep, the only way I can shut out the voices and the doubts and the _fear_ that bleeds off everyone around me, every hour of every day. Seeing you is the only reprieve I get from my own doubts and the helplessness and failure and guilt I have--we still have people on Earth. We left Nicki and Alona there. Our people have families and friends and there are countless more of us we didn't find, and every moment I can't figure out how to save them is another moment ORDA has to claim their lives, and all the while we're being hunted. Some days you are all that keeps me going. If I give this up, I don't know what I'll do, and--"

Silence hung between them. Jensen couldn't bring himself to vocalize his greatest fears, but he didn't have to.

"You're afraid you're crazy, and Katie will figure it out when you tell her what you've been doing. And then you won't get to have me, and you won't be a leader anymore, and you'll be trapped and powerless, unable to help anyone, or carry through on our promise to Nicki and Alona. But you know if you really are crazy, then it's best for everyone if you're not leading everyone. And you're _terrified_ in a way you haven't been since you were living under ORDA's thumb and they took your symbiote away."

Jensen hung his head and nodded, solemnly.

"But the fear that you are crazy and could be leading everyone into a trap is eating away at you, and it eats away more every day." Misha pushed away from the wall and closed the distance Jensen had put between them. He brought his right hand up to Jensen's cheek, the ghostly touch again fizzing and sparking against his skin, like a continuous static charge, building the longer it went on, moving as Misha moved his hand. Misha leaned closer, circling his left arm around Jensen's waist--the almost touch a faint pressure Jensen shouldn't have been able to feel as clearly as he did. Slowly, but inevitably, Misha reeled him in bringing their bodies closer and closer, until they were touching shoulder to groin, contact electric instead of elusive. 

"Yes," Jensen admitted, blinking back the dampness that threatened to spill from his eyes, and looking up at Misha through long lashes. Their faces were so close... Had Misha's eyes always been that blue? The memory had faded over time, and now Jensen wasn't sure, maybe it was a trick of the light in this impossible dream ship, maybe it was his imagination and desire painting an idealized version of the man he'd loved. Either way, Misha was beautiful... And his skin, in the soft light reflected off Aurora below, it was _luminous_... If only Misha could pull him a little closer, Jensen almost believed they could-- "I really wish I could kiss you," Jensen said aloud, surprising himself, his voice a little dreamy and breathy. He smiled though, especially when Misha's eyes twinkled and lost that worried look they'd carried for too long. It was the truth after all.

"Then kiss me." And Misha closed the gap between their mouths, his fingers carding through Jensen's hair.

Lips to lips, parting, slick, soft, gentle--it was a _kiss_ , real and substantial. The electric spark chased them, an echo of the contact of skin on skin. Then Misha's lips parted, and his tongue darted out, teasing the seal of Jensen's lips, begging for entrance... 

It wasn't surrender, because Jensen wanted to let him in... Needed it desperately, a breath of life he hadn't known he required, but now couldn't fathom existing without.

Jensen's broke the seal, and Misha licked his way inside. Their tongues met and tangled, fighting for dominance, caressing, until they settled into a playful chase around first Jensen's mouth then Misha's. It was _real_ and reminiscent of every kiss before, yet new and different, for it was fueled by the pain, loss, and need of more than two years apart. The chasm between life and death haunting them, now finally breached. 

Jensen wanted it to never stop. He would live in this moment in this dream for all eternity if he could, but even knowing he would eventually have to leave, he knew he would treasure this moment for the rest of his existence.

Even in the dream world it seemed they eventually had to come up for air, and when they did, Misha broke away reluctantly, his movement punctuated by an audible gasp. He leaned back just far enough to look Jensen in the eye. His gaze seemed to take in everything in Jensen's face: the years, the pain, the mileage--no--light years between them, and him, all of him. Body, soul, and mind. Misha's right hand traced the sinuous line of Jensen's neck, the curve of his cheek, and the soft cartilage of his ear, before sliding around to cup the back of his head. All the dreams, all the nights, and finally... "This is _real_." Misha murmured the words as if deciding something after a long contemplation.

Jensen said nothing. He couldn't speak, because how, how was this possible? Had he been holding back on himself, refusing to allow himself a fully realized fantasy until he contemplated giving it up, revealing the self-deception for what it was? And now he was what? Giving in to the fantasy, choosing to descend into madness rather than face the bitter loneliness of the real world? _But Misha confronted_ me _, he wanted me to figure it out, and he kissed me to, so even if he's a part of my subconscious... That makes no sense._

Misha must have seen the sudden unfocused introspection in Jensen's eyes, because he responded by lightly tapping Jensen on the forehead with his fingertips. "Shh, none of that," he coaxed, regarding Jensen like he might a skittish kitten. He let his fingers trail down Jensen's face, brushing over his nose, and pausing on his lips.

Pressing forward, Jensen kissed Misha's fingers, snaking his tongue out to taste... The tang of salt on skin, it was Misha... Real, whole, alive, only impossibly here in a dream.

Misha let his fingers linger, then pulled Jensen tight against him his right hand sliding around to Jensen's back, while his left took up the pose his right hand had held a few moments before, as he slid it up Jensen's back and cradled his head, fingers gripping tight in his hair. 

It felt _secure_ , not painful or threatening.

Holding Jensen's gaze for another beat, Misha leaned in, trailing his lips along Jensen's cheek to his right ear.

Breath, warm, wet, and alive, gusted in Jensen's ear.

"Jensen, whatever you're thinking, stop," Misha commanded, speaking into Jensen's ear.

Jensen flinched, not much, just a little jerk in his husband's arms... In his husband's _arms_... Impossible, but undeniably real. Misha's right hand had slid under his shirt and was pressed against his scar, the scar where the Licinian plasma rifle had hit and forever robbed him of normal sensation. Only, he could feel Misha's touch. Skin to skin as if it had never happened. In this place, they were whole. The sensation grounded him, anchored him in the moment, so he could focus on Misha's words.

"You have to tell someone, if not Katie, then Foalar, Harris, Tony, _someone_. You have to tell, and you have to figure this out... Because this is real, and I want to know... I want to know what I am." There was awe in Misha's voice alongside the desperation, and there was no way Jensen could deny what was asked of him.

"I will," he murmured, "I promise, I will."

Misha's lips kissed his ear, soft and true and reverent. In the moment Jensen understood...

And awoke in his bed with a gasp, sitting bold upright. He was drenched in sweat, and panting hard, blankets pooled around his hips. The familiar, ghostly, dead-edged numbness was back in his lower body, so he was definitely awake. But the reality of the dream was still coursing through his mind and saturating his senses, consuming him with the urgency and absolute necessity to tell.

"I've got to find Foalar and Katie."

 _Tony, you need to talk to Tony,_ Misha’s voice seemed echo across the void.

“Tony,” Jensen echoed with a nod, urgency and certainty coursing through him.

He felt it as 3000 light years away in a secret military base on Earth a Colonel Misha Collins awoke taking the knowledge of his dreams with him for the first time.

~~~

**Late June 2015—ORDA Base, Texas, Earth**

 _What would you give?_ A man's voice. His face wise and old. A place of nothingness and immeasurable substance. The space between minds. The consciousness of the universe

Reality snapped back. Cool metal under his left palm, the smooth surface of a monitor under his right. The air moving in unsteady, heaving pants through his lungs--one biological, one biomechanical, but both _his_.

"I'm fine. Just fine," he said, holding up his right hand and halting Tyler mere millimeters from touching him. 

Tyler didn't feel very convinced. Misha could sense his concern and uncertainty even as Tyler took a few steps back.

"Are you sure you don't want someone?"

He wanted someone alright. Someone he couldn't have. Not now, maybe not ever. "I'm okay. I'm fine," he tried to reassure. He just hoped Tyler didn't notice how his hands were shaking, his knees vibrating. 

Tyler definitely noticed. 

"It's just..." Misha began hurriedly trying to stave off scrutiny, "I remembered. I actually remembered something, and it completely took me by surprise because I haven't remembered anything... even the things I kind of remembered I've felt like it wasn't real. People say things enough you start to believe you remember them. But this... this was real!" He couldn't hide the relief or excitement from his voice.

A flash of understanding crossed Tyler’s eyes. “You’re coming back,” he whispered.

Only it wasn’t a whisper. Tyler had… projected it, spoken into Misha’s mind. Misha’s eyes went wide in shock, for a moment unsure if he could trust Tyler or not. Unsure if this was the moment it all came crashing down, months of slowly remembering more and more, fighting, striving, only to have it crash around his head.

“Hey, there’s something I want to show you,” Tyler said instead, motioning for Misha to follow. 

Five minutes later they were standing in an abandoned basement office that looked like it had been stripped of anything useful long ago and forgotten mid renovation. 

“We can talk here. I scan it regularly,” Tyler said, speaking for the first time, since taking Misha on this jaunt.

“How long have you known,” Misha murmured, keeping his voice so low it shouldn’t have been audible, not to a human.

“Since the first day, when I met you,” Tyler answered after a pause, his voice equally quiet. “I felt a little _tickle_ in the back of my mind.” He shrugged, setting the base schematics on the table in front of Misha. “For a long time, I tried to convince myself I was imagining it, just ‘cause I’d heard the rumors of what—who you used to be, but I think I’ve always known.”

“And you? How have you—” he waved his hand side to side, uncertain how to really grasp the _scope_ , the enormity of what he meant.

“Evaded detection? Avoided capture? Escaped with my, heh,” Tyler snorted, “genetic legacy intact?”

“Yeah,” Misha asked, folding his arms across his chest. 

Tyler just shrugged. “I think it’s—instinctive?”

“You’re born,” Misha stated.

Tyler nodded. “Always knew I was different. For a while I thought it was just, you know, being gay. Then I went to college, joined ROTC, and realized I had something in common with a lot of guys in my cohort, some of the girls too, and not all of them were gay. But then they started disappearing. Half of them got tapped for ‘special missions’ right after graduation. We never heard what happened to them. No news on where they went, what they were doing… It didn’t take long for me to realize I didn’t want to get noticed, because whatever was going on,” he shook his head, “it wasn’t good. So I didn’t get noticed. I wasn’t sure of what I was doing, just—” he made a swooping motion with his right hand, “flew under the radar.” Tyler rubbed the back of his neck nervously and shot Misha a sheepish grin. “Later, when they started testing, I wasn’t sure what they were looking for, but I kept thinking, I don’t want to be found. I don’t want to test positive. And I… _didn’t_.”

It was Misha’s turn to nod. “There was… We had a friend, a fellow officer. Plan was—from what I can remember anyway—that he was going to investigate how to get control. To learn more about us, how we work.”

“Do you know what happened?” Tyler asked.

“No,” Misha said shaking his head. “I can’t even—I still can’t remember his name, or where he was going. I think—,” he shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter now.” The memories were trying to surface, he could feel them roiling beneath the surface of his mind. These days Misha felt like he was continually drowning. It was a slow death, and he kept getting revived. Each time a little more stayed with him, a few more facts tumbled free, but then the undertow dragged him down again. He felt lost, disoriented, the facts that emerged didn’t always make sense. It was like hearing words from a dozen books and having to sort through them, piecing them together like a puzzle, only he didn’t know any of the plots or beginnings or endings, and… He shook himself, brushing the train of thought away. “So you’ve never _really_ been tested? You don’t know what your limits are, what you can do? Your weaknesses.”

Tyler looked a little affronted. “I’ve been _tested_ ,” he spat.

“No, not—we don’t…” Misha sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that. We had a doctor who was researching how we worked; she tried to figure out how our brains and bodies interacted, to help us to learn to better control our abilities, to understand how we heal, how we get sick, how she could treat us. There are—there are certain allergies and sensitivities we have. Not all of us, but a lot. They can threaten our lives and they can get us caught. I—remembering my allergies was one of the first things I got back. I’m not sure if I can remember the full list. For all I know, I might not have ever known an exhaustive list, but I could—” he gestured at Tyler.

“I’m allergic to Penicillin?” he asked. “Is that—”

“Yeah,” Misha agreed. “We need to find a way to test for the rest without arousing suspicion.” He looked Tyler up and down. “You ever been exposed to p—posiphase?” He stumbled around the word, but was confident it was the right one. One more piece of the puzzle slotting into place.

“Is that the stuff in plasma rifles?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah,” Misha answered.

“I’ve had a few close calls, but never been shot,” Tyler admitted. 

“Wait—what about the testing? You know,” Misha made a gesture with his hand gesturing at the spot may ORDA soldiers had the same circular scars.

“That’s relatively new. They’ve added tests in phases. If they—I don’t know if I’d pass. I don’t know if they have any plans to test people they cleared before…” Tyler said, voice trailing off in uncertainty.

“Be glad you haven’t—been shot _or_ tested. Plasma rifles suck ass and tend to hurt like hell and leave painful scars even if you’re _not_ allergic,” Misha said, untucking his shirt as he spoke, revealing the network of scars underneath.

Tyler reached out reflexively fingers twitching with his obvious desire to touch. “Sorry,” he apologized, not asking to do what he so clearly desired.

“Go ahead,” Misha offered, stepping forward so Tyler’s fingers brushed across his skin. He sucked in an involuntary breath at the sensation. The touch was gentle, exploring, almost reverent. No one had touched him like that since… 

“Can you feel that?” Tyler asked, sounding surprised.

“Yeah, mostly,” Misha answered. “I’m not allergic.” A memory surfaced. “My husband was, not as allergic as some, but pretty bad. When you’re allergic, it destroys the sensory nerves in your skin, burns out the neurons. Jensen, there were places where he—he couldn’t _feel_ anything.” He shook himself clearing the memory away.

Tyler scowled, just momentarily, when he heard Jensen’s name. Maybe it was just the acknowledgment that Misha had had someone; it did kind of spoil the strangely intimate mood. Tyler’s fingers quested further, eliciting another gasp from Misha, but the touch was clearly curious, not sensual. 

“You should be careful, if you _are_ allergic, it’s pretty much guaranteed to expose you. That plus the penicillin allergy would probably convince them you’re one of us, regardless of what the other tests say.”

Tyler nodded, his expression solemn, shifting into a scowl. “What’s th—” he started, “oh.”

Misha had lifted his shirt out of the way, exposing the left side of his chest, rucking his shirt up above his nipple, tucked safely into his armpit. 

“Is that—I mean, I heard stories, but—what _did_ this? How did you…”

“How did I survive?” Misha asked.

Tyler nodded, his fingers skimming along the lines of the scars from the original T’Yngai blades, his touch hesitant. 

Misha could feel the fear rolling off him.

“They replaced my lung and the left side of my ribcage with Phvanzi technology. Before that—I trained, practiced, spent a lot of time at high altitudes and on worlds with low-metabolite atmospheres—” Seeing Tyler’s confused expression, he explained, “we don’t have to breathe oxygen. We can respire a wide range of gasses and we’re very adaptable. I expanded my lung capacity in my right lung by 25%, it made up for a lot, but,” he shrugged, “sometimes I struggled.”

“You said, before? This happened, this wasn’t all at once?” Tyler asked. His fingers had found the surgical scars and were tracing one of them where it snaked down Misha’s side. 

“I—the details are still fuzzy, but it started when I was in grad school. I fell, and—not quite sure what happened, but I’m pretty sure I punctured my lung. Got exposed to n—nanolumes.”

Tyler’s brow furrowed.

“That’s the proper name for what they call infectious particulate. It’s not a virus. They’re actually tiny, luminescent, biomechanical delivery systems designed for fast-acting gene therapy. They’re what can actually convert a human. They rewrite your DNA. That’s why you can’t actually _infect_ other people. But you will pass it on to your children.” 

“You were, made?” Tyler sounded confused.

“Yes and no. I was born, and then exposed again. I would have been, _me_ , no matter what, but I got on ORDA’s radar because of the exposure. That was the first time I got hurt, where these scars started. Then I was stabbed offworld, and stabbed again, in a conflict with the Licinians.”

“When did you lose your lung?” Tyler asked.

“After I got shot in the chest with a plasma rifle, trying to save the planet,” Misha deadpanned with a wry grin.

“You sound way too upbeat about it. Is it because you don’t remember the pain?” Tyler asked somewhat hopefully.

“No, it was miserable. Felt like I was drowning for weeks,” Misha explained, “even after I got the implant. Loosing bone like that,” he shuddered. “I think I had nightmares about the pain when I first woke up, but I didn’t know what I was dreaming. Way more terrifying that way. Now that I can remember, it’s easier. I make more sense to me now. The scars aren’t just scars. They tell my story, help me remember who I was, who I _am_.” He shrugged. “And saving the planet, it just sounds so ridiculous, to say, but when Dr. Hanniger or General Bellman start getting on my case about what a horrible disappointment I was, I remember that. Kinda changes perspective.” Tilting his head sideways and regarding Tyler carefully he asked, “So, the way you talk about offworld tech, your insistence at staying out of ORDA’s clutches… You really didn’t have any exposure to it until they went military wide with disclosure?”

“No,” Tyler confirmed. “I’ve learned a lot, but I know it’s not the same. There’s an era of our history that I could have lived through, but it’s like I’ll never get the chance.” He sounded almost wistful.

“You might want to watch what you wish for,” Misha replied. “It wasn’t all fun and games. A lot of good people died. We almost lost the planet. Even more were murdered, caught up in the purge. It’s…” he shook his head.

Tyler’s questing fingers pulled back and closed around Misha’s left wrist, gentle, reassuring. 

“I know it was bad, but it still, still hurts, that I wasn’t a part of it,” he admitted. “I don’t mean to diminish their legacy.”

Misha swallowed hard, pushing the lump in this throat away, and speaking clearly for Tyler. “Thanks,” he answered.

Tyler moved closer, smoothing his fingers over the marred skin on Misha’s chest. His touch was soothing, welcoming, inviting. “Some of these look like bullet scars.”

Misha looked down, staring at the puckered skin underneath Tyler’s fingers. To the untrained eye, it probably looked like one big mass of puckered and wrinkled scar tissue. _Not exactly attractive_ , he thought. But focusing, he could see what Tyler meant. It wasn’t just one scar, but several, with more surgical scars skirting the edges. “I think that might be from how I wound up in the hospital in the first place,” he admitted.

“You don’t remember?” 

“No.” Misha had tried, wracked his mind trying to piece together the last few months of his former life, but there was too much disinformation, too little unbiased fact, and his own mind was a jumble, the pieces twisted and skewed like a badly shuffled Rubik’s cube. 

“Ah,” Tyler murmured, his throat making a little clicking sound. His focus narrowed, fingers questing and exploring more of Misha’s skin. “Whatever it was; I’m glad you survived.” He stepped even closer, “And this doesn’t make you unattractive. You just look like even more of a badass survivor.”

Misha felt himself relax, involuntarily, leaning into Tyler’s touch. He closed his eyes, letting himself drift away. When he opened them, he was gazing directly into Tyler’s eyes; were almost the same height. He saw a question there, desire, and he closed the distance between them, a gentle brush of lips, opening, soft, letting his arms slide around, and drawing Tyler into an embrace. His lips parted, welcoming Tyler in. It was… safe, relaxing, nice…. For a moment it was everything he’d been missing, and he wanted it so much. He moaned a little, and Tyler brought his hand up to cup the back of Misha’s head, fingers tangling in his hair…

And then it was all wrong. Fingers shouldn’t feel like that. It shouldn’t… Misha stiffened, wanting to maintain the kiss, the touch so badly, craving it even, but unable to give in. “I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I want—you’re, you’re great, and you deserve someone, to be happy, but I just… I’m not. I can––”

“Nah, it’s all right,” Tyler answered, sounding distinctly disappointed, but stepping back, nonetheless. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair in obvious frustration. “It must be strange, difficult. I’ve never been married, never really had a serious relationship, but coming back from, what, being in a coma for two years, and not remembering anything and then realizing you had a husband, who died because…” His face fell. “They murdered him?”

“Well the story is he died trying to ‘escape,’ refusing to take the ‘cure,’” Misha’s voice caught on the lie, finding it difficult to accept after all this time, especially now that he knew what it meant. “They _forced_ it on so many of us. If he knew any of it, of course he would refuse it.” He sagged against the table. “Sometimes it’s like he’s still out there, waiting for me. I can’t quite believe he’s gone, and it’s not, it’s not because I don’t want to face the truth, it’s because the _truth_ doesn’t feel real. I dream, and when I wake up, I can’t remember the dream, but it’s like I was with him. Sometimes I think I can still hear his thoughts.” In that moment he swore he could feel Jensen reaching for him, touching his mind, so close, but impossibly far away. 

“Was he—was he military?” Tyler asked breaking the spell.

“I’m not sure,” Misha said, shaking his head. “It—sometimes I think yes, sometimes no.”

“Like maybe he wasn’t military and then joined up later?” Tyler asked.

“Maybe?” Misha pondered with a shrug. “I just don’t; there’s still a lot about him I don’t remember. I don’t know if I’ve forgotten to protect myself, or if they somehow blocked those memories, or…” The idea unfurled in his mind, and he shivered as cold tendrils of fear and realization spiraled out from his gut. It was so obvious, how could he not have seen it… 

“What?” Tyler asked.

“When I was still in the hospital, one of the other patients—prisoners—and I, we figured out why we forget. The retrovirus, it leaves us with human senses,” Misha whispered. “But we have other senses. We’re telepathic,” his lips mouthed the word, daring to _push_ it out with his mind.

Tyler nodded, “I know; figured it out a long time ago. That’s part of how I knew _you_.”

“Telepathy means more than just sensing thoughts—it’s empathy, mood impressions. We take in everything around us. Our other senses are…”

“Heightened?”

“A little, mostly different,” Misha clarified. “We have to be able to function in other environments; extreme heat, cold, pressure, different atmospheres, different gravity; our visual range is a little off from human norm, same with hearing. You get the idea. All of that information permeates our memories; so when the senses are taken away, we can’t remember because we can’t interpret the sensory data attached to the memories themselves.” He looked up at Tyler. “My husband was like us, so all my memories of him, our memories together, the nonhuman sensory information would have been more intense, more concentrated. Maybe, maybe it’s harder to remember, because there’s less I can interpret until I’ve recovered further, gained back more of my old self.”

“You don’t think you’re there yet?” Tyler asked.

“No,” Misha shook his head. “I’m pretty confident about that.” 

Tyler just nodded. There was something about his expression that seemed distant, a little off.

“What?” Misha asked.

“You said your husband’s name was Jensen?” 

“Yeah.”

“Is that just something they told you, or do you remember?”

He had to think for a minute. A lot of his knowledge was supplied by ORDA, which meant it was tainted and suspect at best. Still… “I remember. I do remember his name. Calling him that. And there are things; possessions, mementos from our old life. Pictures. I know they’re not fake, because after I saw them, some of the memories started clicking into place. When I can remember my dreams, I dream about the guy in the picture. I think—when I was in the hospital, before they told me anything, when I was still lost, just drifting in and out, I remember calling out his name.” 

Tyler looked very nervous now, and it was setting Misha on edge. 

“What—”

“It’s nothing,” Tyler tried to deflect, taking another few steps back.

“No really, what? I can see you’re thinking something. You asked me those questions for a reason.”

Tyler said nothing; his expression turned stony, but his eyes were pained and haunted. He shook his head.

“Please.” One word. Desperate. And Misha poured every ounce of pain, confusion, and loss he felt into that single syllable. 

Tyler groaned, but Misha could see the minute the battle in him reached climax, and Misha had won, apparently against Tyler’s better judgment. “What was his last name?”

“Uh,” Misha stammered. And wasn’t that funny? He wasn’t sure. It could be Jensen had taken his name, so that would be Jensen Collins, but was Misha the kind of guy who would insist on a spouse taking his name? Did Jensen seem like the kind of guy who would want to do that? Misha would guess he’d be more the keeping his own name type, or maybe aim for hyphenation. Hell, Misha would be more likely to take his husband’s name, but he was certain that Collins _was_ his last name, and had been. But what was Jensen’s? He searched every memory he had recovered, prying, thinking, trying to force a connection, but it remained stubbornly out of reach. “I don’t know,” he said at last, shooting Tyler a sheepish grin. “Why?”

Tyler looked away, took three steps to the table, and began fiddling with the schematics that were spread out there, smoothing the pages, marking careful dots with a pencil. 

For a minute, Misha thought he wasn’t going to answer, but he didn’t dare push Tyler any further. Although he didn’t have fully developed telepathy at the moment, he could sense enough empathic bleed-off coming from Tyler to know whatever was going on was not a matter of stubbornness, nosiness, or anything so petty. If Misha pried… No, Tyler was weighing risks, and was probably in a better position to make that evaluation. Misha wasn’t going to force Tyler into an untenable position. If the guy had survived this long at the heart of the enemy, and was so far unscathed, Misha was not going to be the one to break his cover or make life untenable. 

At last, Tyler began to speak, again his words were near-silent, but this time there was an edge of… anger and betrayal in it that hadn’t been there before. “A while ago, I saw a briefing file I probably wasn’t supposed to. It was for a top secret, compartmentalized, need-to-know mission, but there were details that hadn’t been redacted. Details that were in similar briefings I’ve seen before and since. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, because I didn’t know _why_ that information was important, or how important it could be.”

He shot a quick glance at Misha and leaned against the table, his knuckles turning white as they gripped it. “What do you know about Ackles?”

Misha blinked, caught by surprise by the apparent change of topic. He went with it, though, because Tyler was still projecting the same cautious fear mixed with anger and betrayal. “He’s our target? Enemy number one? He’s supposed to be the leader of the rebellion. Military leader and political leader both, at least that’s what they say in the briefings, but I get the idea he’s more than that; probably his biggest strengths are his skills in espionage and diplomacy, although it’s possible I’m wrong about that. Um… he’s responsible for a whole bunch of people like us making it offworld, and General Bellman is genuinely afraid of him. I think he knows things, or at least she believes he does, that would damn her and her entire administration. It’s our unit’s primary mission to find and kill him, but for some reason the General is convinced he’s going to come to Earth.” Misha looked at Tyler imploringly. “That’s about it.”

Tyler nodded. “That’s what’s in the standard briefing. The file I saw; it was about Ackles. He’s apparently got the rank of General in his own government, but before that, he was an officer in ORDA, a Major at the time he escaped. He’s allergic to posiphase and he has a central nervous system disability, which is why we’re encouraged to employ plasma rifles and aerosolized panantipropenol if we encounter him. Then there’s the really interesting stuff; like apparently he was only in the military for a few years; before that he was a lawyer, and he lived most of his life unknown to ORDA, but he was a born Marker.” Tyler paused, and looked at Misha gaging his reaction.

Misha nodded, because while it all sounded very interesting, he wasn’t sure where this was going. 

“There was one more thing in the file,” Tyler whispered. “His first name; it’s _Jensen_.”

It was as if a cold, unyielding fist closed around Misha’s heart and _tugged_ , taking his breath with it, and making his stomach flip and jump. In ORDA, but not for that long, allergic to posiphase, helped a whole bunch of people to escape Earth, and… and his name was Jensen. Jensen _Ackles_. Misha shivered. He remembered the first time he heard that name, the way it was said, it _stirred_ something in him had recognized it, thought it was significant, but he didn’t know why. All that, the _secrecy_ about his first name, it hadn’t made sense before, but now—if it was the focal point of a _lie_ —of course they’d have to keep his first name a secret! Convince Misha that he’d lost his beloved husband, Jensen, urge him to fight and destroy the _evil_ leader of the resistance. The man who ensured ORDA had to take drastic, measures against the ‘infected.’ It was exactly the sort of plan they would put in play. It explained why they had been so _stingy_ in providing Misha with tangible relics of his past.

“Misha, I think your Jensen is a live. Your husband is still alive. That’s why it feels _wrong_ to be with me. That’s why you can still hear his thoughts. That’s why you’re dreaming about him,” Tyler said sounding devastated.

“Jensen’s alive, and they want me to kill him.” Misha shuddered as soon as the words had left his lips. “They want me to murder my own husband, execute him for them. They want me to destroy our people’s hope.” 

“I am so sorry,” Tyler offered. “But I think the important thing is he’s still alive. Now you know that, have that to hang onto, you have another chance. There’s still a possibility. It’s not foreclosed on you forever.”

Tyler’s words were true, but they just made the twisting, confused panic inside Misha more prominent. “I just… what do I do with this information?” he demanded.

“Well, we stick to the original plan and hang onto that knowledge until a point where we can actually do something with it,” Misha resolved. 

“Okay.” Tyler reached up and braced himself against the overhead piping with one arm. “That’s why I brought these schematics. This is ORDA’s hidden base in Texas. It’s about fifteen miles from the hospital complex where they did your… rehab,” Tyler searched for the right word. 

“Why is this place key?” Misha asked, leaning over the table to get a closer look at the documentation, still feeling completely rattled after the turn of events and the recent revelations.

“It’s a PC,” Tyler replied.

Misha cast him a blank look.

“Processing center,” Tyler explained. That’s where they take people who have been identified as being “infected.” 

Misha gulped, his stomach souring and blood running cold at the thought. “What do they…” he started.

“What you’d expect. They confine people, hook them up to IVs and administer the retrovirus, providing additional treatment as needed. When they start to wake up, ORDA gives them the story about why their memories are so spotty, or in some cases completely gone. Inside it’s…” Tyler swallowed hard, clearly gulping down bile. “Misha, you know they have children there, right?”

“Children,” Misha repeated, dumbly.

“They arrest everyone. And once they find one person in a family who’s got the wrong genes, they go after the entire family, testing everyone, and subjecting them all to the same rules and regulations. That means when they come out the other side, you’ve got parents who don’t remember being parents, let alone being with their kids. Children don’t remember their parents. Once they start treatment, they have to break up family units because kids don’t get cared for properly. They destroy memories, and they destroy lives. Childhoods, _gone_. Don’t they—how can they _do_ that?” Tyler asked, his voice cracking. 

“Your childhood,” Misha realized, shooting Tyler a quick look.

“Didn’t really have one to speak of. I grew up in the system, felt a lot of pressure to commit myself to service, preferably military service,” Tyler shook his head. “I understand things don’t always work out; I’m not bitter about it. It’s just seeing that level of love and devotion and familial bonds tossed aside and broken up in the name of purifying humanity.” He shuddered. “What happens to those kids isn’t purification, it’s torture.”

“We’ll stop it, I promise,” Misha answered with more confidence than he really felt.

~~~

**Early July 2015—Aurora City, Aurora**

“I keep expecting to find myself in a desert and have some loincloth-wearing dude with war paint on his face to pop up and say ‘Death is your gift,’” Jensen scoffed, shaking his head.

“‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ if I’m not mistaken. The… television program, not the feature film.”

Jensen spun on his heel. “For a kindly old dude who’s spent the last fifty years or so on a remote planet at the ass end of nowhere you sure are up on your late 20th and early 21st Century Earth cultural references.

“It’s forty years, and I have always felt that information, and knowledge, are the most powerful tools at our disposal.” Tony smiled, his expression gentle and kindly and without a hint of guile. “I make it a point to know what is important to the people who are important to me.”

Jensen scowled at him. “And that got you to _Buffy_ , really?”

Tony raised his hands in surrender. “As I said, important to you,” he gestured at Jensen, palms up, “important to me.” He pressed his palms back against his chest.

With a sigh and a shrug, Jensen turned back to his musings, leaning forward on the railing, chest pressed flat to his forearms, chin resting on his hands, elbows digging into the wood. “Whatever,” he sighed. “I’m starting to think I need to find a new place to think. Every time I come out here, one of them follows. You’d think I was sending out the bat signal for ‘come find me,’ rather than ‘I want to be alone.’” 

Tony’s footsteps brushed closer. “You could always find another place.”

He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “This is the best thing about the compound, the planet, I’m not going to change my habits to please a bunch of paranoid sycophants.” Jensen stared up seeing the sun’s warm, ruddy glow peeking from between the clouds. His gaze swung from the sky above to the treetops, mountains, and ground far, far below as he unconsciously leaned forward. Realizing belatedly how this probably looked, especially when combined with the miasma of conflicted emotions Jensen was undoubtedly projecting. “Before you ask,” he muttered, “I just like the sky. I’m not actively suicidal.”

“And before you go any further, let me point out that it is _me_ and not one of _them_ who followed you out here. The… signal you were projecting, Jensen is not one any of them would ever have felt compelled to answer,” Tony’s whisper seemed to boom, resonant and deep, from the space behind Jensen’s left ear. _It’s not one they would_ know _to follow._

Choosing to ignore Tony’s typically cryptic aside, Jensen continued. “Being here, I feel like I could fly. It… reminds me of a time when wormholes were new and fun, and the when I got over my internal bullshit, there was nothing more exciting than visiting a new world, learning what I could do. Before I knew… _What ORDA really was. What I really was. What was at stake. What it would cost._ They were his private thoughts, but he let them slip from the protective cocoon of his mind flying free and far enough for Tony to ‘hear’ them.

“You’re not seeing ghosts.”

“Excuse me?” Jensen stammered, whirling so fast he fell back against the railing.

Index finger tapping against his temple, Tony smiled. “For the most gifted telepath of your generation, you sure can be dense sometimes.”

Jensen inhaled, prepared to snap, lash out at Tony, but he found himself crumbling, sagging back against the railing. “If I’m not seeing ghosts then what am I—”

“Give me your hand?” It was mixed request and question. 

He hesitated only a moment then reached out, slowly. Tony’s hands were warm and soft where they held his. There was something comforting and familiar about the gesture, even though Jensen couldn’t recall ever having held Tony’s hand before. For a split second their eyes met and then Jensen was sucked into a white void.

“What—what is this place?” Jensen asked, swallowing hard. _Is this real?_

“Have you been here before?” Tony asked.

“No.” Jensen started. Then continued, _Not here, but somewhere._ Aloud he asked, “Is this real? Is there…”

“More?” Tony asked.

Jensen gulped and nodded, looking around. The room, or wherever they were, was still one vast, white expanse. He couldn’t tell ground from sky or floor from walls. It reminded him of _The Matrix_ , seemed completely false, and yet, felt familiar. 

“Yes, there is more. This place, is not so much a place, but nowhere and everywhere. Welcome to Null space, Jensen.”

“What _is_ it?” He asked, reaching out, fingertips questing for walls that seemed both so close and not there at all.

 _An inversion of time and space. The space_ between _time and space. A manifestation of the telepathic plane that links us all._ As Tony spoke in Jensen’s mind, the void seemed to slowly spin, gradually resolving itself into a scene with towering grasses, an obsidian beach, jade green water, and an amethyst sky. Aloud he said, “Reach inside yourself to the place you can _feel_ your telepathy while also reaching out to another or others. Nullspace can be your private retreat or the means to conference with thousands of others across space.”

“You let go of my hand,” Jensen realized aloud. “But I can still feel it?”

Tony nodded and strode up alongside Jensen. “You’re feeling the world out there bleeding through. Many cannot do that. Although, I would have expected nothing less of you.”

“Most gifted telepath,” Jensen muttered under his breath. _I know this place_ , he realized.

“It’s a beach on the far side of Aurora, close to my old house. It was Marie’s _favorite_ beach, one of her favorite places in all the galaxy.”

Jensen felt a little spark of _something_ (he dare not call it hope) that had been growing since Tony had said there were no ghosts, sputter and die in his chest. 

“I believe you came here once. Ran here when you realized what ORDA had become. What was in store for us all.”

But Jensen wasn’t listening. The words didn’t register, nor did he stop to wonder how Tony would have known. Suddenly this place that had been magical and beautiful and awe-inspiring, if only for a moment, was more than he could stand. “I—I should go. This place is private to you,” Jensen said walking away. He was composed enough to know he didn’t really have a _direction_ and away was kind of meaningless in an apparently limitless space in someone’s mind, but still… “Thank you for showing this to me, but I don’t want to intrude on your time with Marie,” he said over his shoulder as he walked away, anger rising in his chest with every step. Anger at ORDA, at the universe—at himself. In so many ways it was his fault they were all here. His fault Tony had lost his home. His fault— He ignored the voice that sounded like Misha that would say again that ORDA were the murderers, not them. But if Jensen hadn’t been sick, if symbiote withdrawal hadn’t progressed as rapidly in him as it had… if they hadn’t escaped would ORDA still have escalated the war? Might the people on Aurora or Miradoma—ORDA’s name for the planet—have survived unscathed, able to stay in their homes.

“I don’t visit Marie here. She’s dead.” _And gone._

Tony’s words stopped Jensen in his tracks. His thoughts made Jensen turn slowly towards him.

“What do you mean?” Jensen settled on at long last, his mind struggling against the weight of a thousand questions.

“I told you; no ghosts. There are no ghosts here. If you’re coming here and seeing someone you’re seeing a real, live person. Maybe not here. Maybe half a universe away. Maybe they’re not awake. But the point is this is a telepathic space where only living minds, unconscious perhaps, but _living_ , can go to interact.”

“But I’m not coming here,” Jensen protested, recognizing his voice came out as more of a whine, but unable to really care. His mind felt like it was unravelling spinning out in every direction, seeing possibility after possibility, but flinching back. Part of him was afraid to see, to understand.

To comprehend the implications.

“Ah, but you are going _somewhere_. In your dreams when you’re not sure if you’re sleeping, you are going somewhere meaningful to you, maybe a construct of your own mind, maybe your favorite vacation spot, but whatever it is, it’s a place that has significant meaning to _you_. And when you get there, you’re not alone. What I’m saying is the person you’re seeing is not a ghost!” Tony looked almost triumphant as he spoke.

“Then what, a figment of my imagina—”

“Nullspace is a place many of us never figure out how to reach on our own… but once we are shown, we can return at will. When we want to… when we need to… In times of desperation and moments of need this is a safe haven. The universe within an instant. The separation of space rendered… meaningless.” 

The scene seemed to flicker around them as if the space was… opening up changing, gaining flexibility.

“Do you remember the day you met me?” Tony asked.

Jensen blinked. The scene seemed to shift slightly, as if for a moment he was seeing the deck of the ship, _his_ ship, but then it was back to Miradoma… the outskirts of the old ORDA base on the far side of the planet, a continent and a half away.

“Yeah, vaguely. I remember you showed me the plans for Aurora. You trusted… you trusted us. Let us know we had a refuge if we needed it,” Jensen answered.

Tony nodded in agreement. “And before you left, I showed Misha this place.”

Something snapped inside Jensen; his stomach suddenly filled with the flutter of wings, his heart beating faster. The scene seemed to blur around them. No longer grass and sea and sky, but not the blank white of the void, either. “Wha—”

“I asked him how much he was willing to give to save you, to save our people. And he told me he would do anything. He would lay down his life for you… but Jensen, I think Misha would also live for you. He would find a way to survive against impossible odds. In the face of death. In the face of being unmade by ORDA’s so-called cure.”

“But that—how. He died. I _felt_ him die,” Jensen breathed his voice cracking, but as he spoke, Nullspace was rearranging around them. Beneath their feet the grey of the deck, a dozen yards away, the faint purple glow of the forcefield around the viewport. Within moments he could see the glittering orb of Aurora hanging in space below. “A—and even if he somehow survived, the cure they—”

“You have been seeing Misha in your dreams.”

“Yes,” Jensen admitted.

“I taught Misha to find this place because I knew it would give him another option. One more chance, and I think he took it.”

“What you mean he’s hanging out in the moment before he died, and I’m talking to him in my dreams?” Jensen asked with a skeptical cough wandering towards the now-familiar viewpoint. 

“It doesn’t work that way. In here time has no meaning, but Nullspace is not a form of time travel. You can contact someone over great distance, but they must be of the same time. I think,” Tony said as he joined Jensen at the viewport, “Misha has survived.”

“There have been rumors…” Jensen acknowledged, his head falling forward with a defeated flop, his forehead so close to the viewport he could feel the static of the forcefield against his skin.

“Rumors, yes, but if Misha was truly gone. If he had been remade, if he was truly their weapon, made _human_ … he could not access Nullspace, and he certainly couldn’t contact you. I think Misha’s unconscious mind is reaching out for you, finding you reaching out for him, across your bond, and finding you and pulling you in here. Now that you _know_ what this is, and how to get here, you will have more control. You can use this.”

“Use it how?” Jensen asked trying to process the potentially life-altering secret Tony had dropped in his lap. He wanted to believe. If he was honest, a part of him, something deep inside where his bond to Misha lived, already believed. Had always believed, had _known_ from the moment he first opened his eyes and found himself in a different world. 

“To communicate. Help him remember who he is. Find out what he knows.”

“Tell him our plans?” Jensen asked tentatively.

“If you can trust him, yes,” Tony answered. He caught Jensen’s eye. “You know him. You know if you can trust him. Only you can decide what to do from there.”

Tony turned and walked away from the viewport, disappearing when he crossed about half the bay. 

Jensen lingered for a moment then followed, crossing back out of Nullspace after a few steps. When he emerged he was still standing with his back pressed to the railing, the tower of the central Auroran complex stretching up above him, pointing into the purple sky. Tony was still there, but a few paces away and he was no longer holding onto Jensen’s wrist. “Why’d you do that?” Jensen started, then clarified. “Why did you wait so long to tell me?”

“Because I had to know you were ready,” Tony answered. 

Jensen nodded, because somehow it made sense. He thought about his encounter with Aldis not that long ago. If he’d understood what was really happening back when he was dosing himself with panantipropenol without any safeguards, when he was hurting himself to try to test himself, when he was lost and flailing—and failing—to find purchase under the weight of the world and the shifting alliances all around them… He had no clue what he would have done. But now?

Now, Jensen had a plan.

~~

**Two Days Later—Aboard the _ADF Collins_ , Trading Mission, Deep Space**

This time when Jensen “awoke” in his dreamscape he was in bed. It was the same round bed he’d awakened in the first time he’d begun to realize this place was more than a dream.

“You are so, so, beautiful… handsome, generous…” Misha’s voice said beside him.

Jensen rolled to his left, marveling at the ease of movement. “You’re here,” he murmured, a smile spreading across his face.

“Where else would I be?” Misha asked, drawing Jensen in for a kiss. It started as a light press of lips, gentle and whisper soft, but soon deepened as Misha wrapped his arms around Jensen, sliding under his t-shirt and up his back. 

As always, in the dreamscape, Jensen’s skin was unmarred, his body whole and sensation normal. He let out a gasp as Misha’s fingers flicked over his nipples, startling them to attention. 

“I’ve missed you, missed this, so much,” Misha murmured before diving in to press kisses against Jensen’s neck, nosing and nibbling at the curve of his jaw, his Adam’s apple, and across to the crease of his neck and shoulder, where he stopped and bit down hard, sucking a deep bruise into the sensitive skin.

“Misha, I—” Jensen said, suddenly at a loss for words. Every day for over two years he’d dreamed of this, being with Misha again. Making love, even if it was one last time… His mind wandered back to that night at his parent’s house in Texas. They’d made love then, and part of Jensen had known deep down, it was for the last time. He’d tried to brush it off as a _last time on Earth_ , sort of feeling, but something, an instinct maybe, had told him that wasn’t true. 

“No no, shhhh, none of that,” Misha said, pausing in his attack of Jensen’s collar bone. “Be here,” he whispered into Jensen’s ear, “now, with _me_ ,” he added, taking Jensen’s right hand between his and placing it over his heart. “Let us have this.”

Jensen blinked. When he opened his eyes, they were still… together, on the circular bed on the deserted landing bay of the mysterious spaceship that had long inhabited Jensen’s imagination. “Okay,” he answered. Then again, with more conviction. “Okay.” He set up lifting his shoulders, so Misha could pull off Jensen’s t-shirt.

Jensen returned the favor, his questing hands skimming along Misha’s torso and shoving the offending garment up and off. When Misha had tossed it out of the way, Jensen froze, his hands resting on Misha’s pecs—his smooth, unmarked pecks. Gone were the familiar parallel scars along Jensen’s left ribs that had been there since the first time Jensen had seen Misha with his shirt off. Gone too were the more recent scars—burns from the plasma rifle crisscrossed with neat surgical incisions. “How—”

“This is how I see myself… in my mind’s eye, I guess,” Misha murmured. 

Jensen knew he’d never seen Misha looking like this. He’d never had a fantasy where he imagined what Misha must have looked like before… uh, in college maybe? “But I—”

“This is me, Jensen. This is from my memory, not yours, and right now, I need to be with you. I need—need to feel you inside. I need to remember.”

It took a moment for Misha’s words to register. “You want me to fuck you?” Jensen asked, somewhat skeptical. 

“Well, I’d like to think of it as more significant than just a fuck, but, _yeah_. I’m starting to forget… What it feels like, to be loved. And I want to remember. Here—and out there too,” Misha replied.

“O—okay,” Jensen agreed, sitting up farther to capture Misha’s lips. He nipped and nibbled as his hands skimmed down Misha’s unmarked torso and into his sleep pants, easily undoing the tie, and easing them over Misha’s hips. Slipping his fingers between Misha’s cheeks he was surprised to find Misha already lubed, wet, and relaxed. 

“I was waiting for you—all ready,” Misha panted, tugging off Jensen’s boxers as he spoke. He looked Jensen directly in the eye, “Can I have this? Will you give me—”

“Of course Misha, of course,” Jensen breathed. No sooner had he spoken, than Misha had straddled his hips, taking Jensen in hand. “Oh—oh god.” 

Misha was sinking down, tight, lube-slick, heat enveloping Jensen’s dick, sucking him in, tugging against the head of his cock with just enough friction to make his toes curl. Misha kept sliding down, down, down, until—finally—he was completely seated, ass snug to Jensen’s groin as Jensen bottomed out, balls deep in Misha’s ass. It felt-- _incredible_. 

It was amazing and _real_ … The sensation as clear and free of interference as it had been before Jensen was shot in the back. It shouldn’t have been possible, but it was. Just like he didn’t usually top, and they didn’t usually make love bareback, Jensen was absolutely certain the sensations were real. This was how it would feel if he and Misha were—could—do _(had done?)_ in the real world what they were doing in the dreamscape. 

“You feel—amazing. So big, so hard for me. You’re perfect, Jensen. Perfect for me. I needed this. I need _you_!” Misha panted, as he began to thrust in and out, slow at first then faster. Their breathing synced up until there was nothing but the rhythmic slap of skin on skin punctuated by their joint gasps.

“I—I’m not gonna last,” Jensen admitted between pants. 

“’T’s okay,” Misha said, squeezing his ass tight around Jensen’s shaft, driving him wild. He bobbed his hips up and down faster and faster, adjusting the angle and letting out a wanton moan that let Jensen know he had nailed Misha’s prostate. 

After that Jensen joined in, bracing himself against the bed with his heels and thrusting up to meet Misha on every stroke.

Misha’s groans grew louder, the roll of his hips growing erratic as he panted harder, faster.  
He squeezed again, and Jensen lost it, shooting his load with the enthusiasm of a champagne cork. As he came, Misha closed his eyes, going still as thick ropes of Misha’s orgasm painted across Jensen’s belly and splattered against both their chests.

Jensen lay still, staring up at Misha in awe, as he started to come down. “I haven’t—” he shook his head. “Nothing has felt like that since—”

“Shh,” Misha hushed again. “Be here with me, now. Not there.” 

Nodding, Jensen reached up and brushed hair off Misha’s forehead. “Thank you.”

“I love you,” Misha replied, leaning in for another kiss. When it broke what felt like minutes later, Misha tilted his head back to regard Jensen. The love and affection in his eyes so strong and clear it was a tangible force in their impossible room.

“I love _you_ ,” Jensen echoed. “I don’t want you to go.” Jensen’s dick was starting to soften and slide from Misha’s lax, slippery hole, but it gave a twitch at the mention of “going.”

“It’s you that needs to go. You’ve got somewhere to be,” Misha murmured. “Just stay with me a moment longer?”

“Okay,” Jensen replied, again unsure of what was really happening. What was Misha talking about? And how did he seem to know and understand so much that Jensen didn’t? Was Misha a representation of his subconscious? Was—

“Shhhh, love.” Misha kissed the corner of Jensen’s mouth. “I’m real.”

There was _hope_ in those words, and a certainty Jensen hadn’t heard or felt since Misha— But it was back now, and he took Tony’s advice, grabbing it and holding on with both hands. “Not gonna let you go,” he murmured. 

“Nor I you,” Misha echoed.

Jensen wrapped his arms and legs around Misha, holding on tight, and rolling them onto their sides. He held on and breathed, soaking in Misha’s smell, the feel of his presence, the beat of his heart, the rise and fall of every breath until, finally, they drifted to sleep, still in each other’s arms.

Misha’s solid form evaporated from Jensen’s arms as he woke. Jensen rolled onto his back and breathed, blinking up at the ceiling, willing the tears not to come. Every time he saw Misha in the dreamscape. Every time… it felt so real, and when he awoke, it was like losing Misha all over again. His soul ached, but even if he could, he wouldn’t give it up… not if there was a chance, however slim, he would get to see Misha the next day or the next, if only in his dreams.

25,000 light years away in a single bed with hospital corners in a lonely barracks on Earth, Misha sat bolt upright, heart thumping in his chest, stomach covered with come.


	8. Doomsday Ticks Closer

**July 2015—ORDA Base, Colorado, Earth**

“So what’s that supposed to be?” Lt. Casey, the nosey one, asked stepping up behind Aldis and peering over his shoulder.

His thumbs flew across the screen blanking it quickly so it looked like an ordinary smartphone home screen. Or at least he _hoped_ it did. Like everyone else on Aurora, his knowledge of Earth-based technology was almost three years out of date, and while they had Fropali intel to help them, Aldis didn’t relish betting his life on assuming Fropali diplomats had captured important nuances. There were just some things one only learned by living with people and tech day in and day out. “Hmm?” he asked, pulling up the web browser, and hoping he struck the right degree of casual.

“What? Are you embarrassed or something?” Casey taunted. Aldis was really glad his cover identity outranked hers because her casually obnoxious arrogance exceeded even that of the soldiers Aldis had worked with in General Lehne’s command. 

“Oh that?” Aldis feigned surprise. “That’s a game a friend of mine designed. Supposed to be a sci-fi simulator, like something out of _Star Trek_ or something.”

“Didn’t look familiar to me,” Casey countered fists propped on her hips.

“That’s because it’s a prototype. Not available anywhere yet.” Aldis shrugged. “My friend does open-source game and app design. I don’t know much about it,” he lied, “but this game was a gift.”

“Then why’d you switch away from it so fast when I asked what it was?” Casey asked, crossing her arms.

“Because I wasn’t supposed to be dicking around with a computer game,” Aldis said with slow exasperation. “I said I’d look up a suitable place off base, so that’s what I’m doing.”

His response was greeted with a disbelieving nod. “Your _friend_ got a name?”

“What’s it to you?” Aldis asked, trying to sound curious instead of defensive.

“This a friend, or a disgusting, inappropriate relationship _friend_ ,” Casey sneered.

“Excuse me, _lieutenant_ , I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply, but last I checked, DADT was repealed years ago.” Aldis stuffed his “phone” back in his pocket and took a step back.

“Hey bro, what’re you throwing rank out there for? In case you haven’t noticed we’re off-duty wearing civvies.” Casey’s sudden shift towards friendliness was faked, Aldis could tell. Her body language was all wrong and she tweaked all his subdued senses in exactly the wrong way. Two-plus years of living with the Licinians had left his senses super-sharp and his perception of body language and nonverbal communication especially heightened. He knew humans, and he knew exactly what this human was saying, and it was bad news for him. 

“You’re still supposed to respect your superiors and conduct yourself with decorum at all times,” he said, crossing his arms to mirror Casey’s.

“Look, I know you’ve been off in the wilds of you-can’t-tell-us-the-fuck-where for the last three years, and I don’t know what your _friend’s_ deal is, but that game, is gonna get him in trouble. A _lot_ of trouble. He may love sci-fi and think it’s cool to emulate Star Trek, but that _game_? Looks a little too much like the kind of unauthorized tech our current crop of terrorists is using. You use that on base, let any superior officer see you with that, play that game in front of an MP, and you can bet your ass you’ll be getting hauled off for interrogation and processing.” She scowled and stepped closer to him, then closer still, leaning in. Even at a half foot shorter than Aldis, and looking up at him, she was damn intimidating. 

Aldis’ pulse quickened, his heartbeat echoing in his ears, heat rushing to his cheeks, sweat pooling between his shoulder blades. _This is too close._ And he wasn’t thinking about where she was standing.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said without a hint of emotion.

“I don’t think you’re taking me seriously.” Casey leaned in further.

Aldis didn’t flinch. “Oh I’m dead serious lieutenant. I’m just trying to decide if my friend is stupid, oblivious, or involved in something I’m going to need to report. So tell me, since you seem to know more about this than me, are you sure what you saw just looks _like_ unauthorized tech, or is it the real thing?” Tight-voiced, his lips barely moving, pouring intimidation into every ounce of his being he waited. It was a dangerous gamble, but if he was going to come this close to exposure, he might as well make the most of it. 

Casey was silent for several moments before she burst out in a laugh. “Hah! It’s just a game, relax.”

“You’re sure?” Aldis queried, maintaining the same tone of voice. 

“Yes.”

He blinked.

“Ye-es, sir.”

“Why are you sure?” 

Casey huffed out a sigh. “I didn’t get that good a look at it, but it’s pretty clear that’s just an app on a phone. It was in English, was pretending to read atmospheric data, and didn’t have any indication it was trying to transmit anything anywhere. The terrorist devices, they’re not cell phones, for one thing. The ones that were covered on the news were all in some language that doesn’t exist anywhere that any linguist knows of, and were all obviously transmitting information to some external location.”

“You’re certain,” Aldis confirmed.

Casey shrugged, her demeanor relaxing considerably. “Hey, I just know what they said on the news. I’m not cleared for more than that. But from what I’ve heard, yeah. Your friend is probably just being a wiseass.” 

“Thanks,” Aldis said, letting his glare morph into a small smile.

“No problem,” Casey offered with a wave of her hand. She took a few steps backward and let her arms drop to her sides. “So, are we still going off base, or are you in too much of a pissy mood to enjoy your downtime?”

Aldis allowed himself to relax to something approaching “at ease.” “Oh we’re still going off base, but since you were acting like a homophobic ass back there, we’re going to a gay bar.”

“You’re not serious?” Casey exclaimed. 

“Oh, I’m serious,” Aldis replied. “I know a place that guys _and_ girls go to. You can be my fag hag or let the ladies hit on you.” He shrugged. “Your choice.”

“You asshole,” Casey responded, teasing. “Come on,” she gestured, “lead the way.”

“Oh ho, ho no.” He shook his head. “You’re driving. I’ll give you directions.”

Lip jutting out in the prefect picture of a pout, Casey protested.

“Nuh uh,” Aldis scolded, shaking his finger. “After that bullshit you pulled, it’s the least you can do.”

With a dramatic sigh, Casey recanted, and led the way into the parking lot. 

Aldis followed behind her watching her steps warily. It was good to know. Bad that he’d nearly been caught, but better to know now than later. And to think he’d almost set up the interface in Phvanzi! While it was possible the unknown language Casey mentioned was actually something else, like Fropali, Aldis was willing to bet the others had made the same mistake he had. Every Naiian who’d served in ORDA could read Phvanzi. A Naiian who had no exposure to ORDA could decipher and learn to read Phvanzi within a matter of hours, possibly faster. Most humans didn’t know it, even those who had served in ORDA, and since it wasn’t a cypher, it couldn’t be “cracked.” It seemed like a reasonable layer of security that would leave sensitive information looking like made-up gibberish to the uninitiated. Only thanks to some stupid news broadcast, probably aided along by ORDA, everyone in the world, or at least everyone in the United States Military was on the lookout for precisely that. Rather than being a layer of security, Phvanzi text became an identifier. The content of the message no longer mattered, just by using that language, Naiians identified and exposed themselves. 

Belatedly, Aldis wondered who had done it, who had been caught, because the tech description was too specific to be some generic scare tactic cooked up in ORDA’s media relations administration. He shuddered, wondering if they too had wound up in one of the “processing centers.” He certainly hoped not, but didn’t have a very good feeling about it.

When they reached Casey’s car, and she was distracted and busy unlocking and moving the seat so Aldis would have enough leg room, he chanced sneaking a look at the analysis program again. Sure enough, he was right. Someone, somewhere in the vicinity was using Licinian encryption protocols and, _yep_ , the message was being transmitted into orbit. To a satellite, a relay, or a waiting ship, he didn’t know, but he sure as hell was going to find out. 

Either there were Licinians hiding on base or there was someone on base talking to the Licinians. _Which_ faction, he didn’t know. But unless they were _Naiian_ allies, Aldis was in immediate danger. Humans and human technology might not be able to see through his disguise, but he was pretty sure the Licinians would see through the masking techniques he had learned from them.

~~~

Three days later and Aldis was no closer to figuring out who or what was the source of the information. He had half a mind to dismiss it as a relic of something that had happened early on during the… occupation.  
He knew it wasn’t _technically_ an occupation given that humans were the ones in control and humans were from Earth too, had been there first to be blunt about it, and hadn’t actually come in from elsewhere to take control. But it still felt that way to Aldis. Everywhere he looked he saw roles and spaces that used to be filled by _his_ people now being filled by humans, interlopers, while Naiians were subjugated, oppressed, stripped of their identity and turned into something… unnatural.

But occupation or not, that wasn’t the real issue. No, the question was whether the information about “unauthorized technology” had come from early reports leaked by ORDA, early capture of Naiians still in hiding on Earth, or if it was something newer, something that signified a continuing presence. As much as he would like to blame it on outsiders, like a Licinian faction that still held with the old party line, he knew deep down it at least equally likely the current threat was human in origin. Still, he couldn’t quite shake the itch at the back of his mind. Even with his telepathy and other Naiian “gifts” suppressed, something was tripping his sensors. Something—or _someone_ —on base was very wrong.

He extended his perception as much as he dared, eased back on the control of his senses, increased neurotransmitter production just enough to get a surface read on those around him. But nothing provided any useful clues. All the pheromones he was taking in were human. There were no Licinians and no other Naiians, within range. He did pick up on _alien_ pheromones on evening of the second day, just outside the mess hall, but soon realized they were coming from a team freshly returned from M’Nell. Two of their members had spent time in the hospital there and had been in close contact with Phvanzi doctors and drugs. The pheromones were _on_ them, and seeping from their pores thanks to the medication they’d been given. 

With no other leads, and the itch growing to a painful pressure, he turned to the only source he had and took a gamble.

“So,” he opened, setting down his tray and sliding into a seat across from Casey in the mess hall. “I need to know what you know about the unauthorized tech.”

She looked up at him, burger still clutched in one hand, dripping mayonnaise and ketchup onto her plate, as her mouth sagged open in confused surprise.

“Who’d you get your info from, really, and don’t tell me it was just the news, because I researched old news stories on the topic, and none of them were as detailed as the information you gave me. So I figure either you’re making shit up…” He looked her directly in the eye and held her gaze. “Or, you’ve got a source with more information.” 

_There_ , a tell-tale tick in her right eyelid when he’d mentioned a source. He didn’t even need telepathy to detect her deception.

“What’s it to you?” she asked, braking eye contact and taking a big bite of her burger. 

“I have a friend, a friend who used to be really close, but whom I haven’t seen much of in the last three years, who gave me a supposed prototype game that might be a threat to national security. I want to know how much trouble my friend is in and what I can do to fix things… and if I can’t fix things, then I want to know what the fuck happened to my friend!” Aldis managed to keep his voice low for most of the speech, but lost it on the last line. The lie was both too offensive for his ethical and moral comfort and too close to the truth to be painless.

Casey seemed to regard him for a moment, weighing her options, before she gave Aldis a slow nod and answered his question. 

“Sergeant Ryers,” she finally said between mouthfuls. “He’s an MP here on base. Not quite sure what he does with unauthorized tech or why he shared the information, but he’s my source. Everything he’s told me has turned out to be true...” Casey blinked, looked at Aldis, then down at her plate. “So I’ve been feeding his classified information to my teammates, and so far it seems to be good.”

“What’s his objective, d’you know?” Aldis asked, pushing his mashed potatoes around his plate.

“Not sure,” Casey admitted with a shrug. “I know he’s thanked me the half-dozen or so times I’ve reported something suspicious to him. Twice it turned out there were people on base who had… unnatural traits. I’m not sure what Ryers’ role in it was, but about three days after I passed the information along, the MPs arrested the people in question.”

“Do you know what happened to them, the… unnatural people, I mean?” Aldis asked, hoping he didn’t sound too eager.

“Got sorted to the closest PC, I suspect,” she answered around a mouthful of peas. “But, I dunno. Coulda been they just executed them seeing as they were traitors or insurgents with access to all the confidential information on base.”

Aldis suppressed the shiver of fear that threatened to shake him from head to toe at the mention of “traitors” and execution. He was well aware of just how unstable his position was, and he had already stepped outside the bounds of his narrowly focused mission parameters. What he was contemplating would only take him further outside and risk exposing him, and… and… Aldis had absolutely no doubts that if they realized what he was he’d definitely qualify as one of those traitors to be executed without question or delay. Only if he got caught he was quite possibly damning every Naiian left on Earth and quite possibly those on the new homeworld. 

Worrying now, though, wouldn’t help, so he pushed the fear aside and focused on the task at hand. “Thanks,” he said with uneasy familiarity. 

“Whatever,” Casey muttered under his breath.

~~~

Over the next few days, Aldis developed a plan to figure out how to _use_ the presence of Licinians to his advantage. If he could find the right Licinians, he could contact Aurora.

Aldis had planned to put his plan in motion right after dinner, or at the latest early the next morning, but his unit got called on a late-night raid immediately after dinner, and he found himself breaking down doors and storming into ordinary people’s homes alongside the human members of his unit. The process made him sick. Not everyone whose home they stormed was a Naiian. Some were caught up as a result of false-positive test results or suspicious allergies, while others were clearly Naiian sympathizers, humans who were being disappeared—punished, made an example out of—for daring to provide aid and support to their Naiian friends.

Within minutes of the first door they struck with a battering ram his nose was saturated with the smell of fear and panic and death. Human and Naiian pheromones alike battered at his defenses, stirring the urge to protect, defend, stop the suffering—but anything he did would have far worse consequences: it would expose him, expose what he could do, and jeopardize the safety of those back home and here on Earth in hiding. But doing nothing, he was complicit, wasn’t he? Aldis struggled to function against the moral weight of his position. This wasn’t the first undercover mission he had, it wasn’t the first time he’d been forced to acquiesce in the face of harm or evil for the sake of the greater good, but it was the first time he’d felt like he was signing his own death warrant with every breath he took.

Even worse than his guilt at aiding and abetting human xenophobes in order to maintain his cover, was the unrelenting stream of telepathic and sensory data he received. Being around so many Naiians in extreme psychological distress was enough to force his body into sympathetic production of relevant neurotransmitters. Not enough that he would be likely to trip any of the scanners his compatriots had with them—at least as long as they didn’t aim the scanners _at_ Aldis, but enough that he could read the others’ surface thoughts, feel their terror, understand their intentions. It was a nightmare. Some of the “subjects” were terrified, horrified to learn they were “infected.” But terrified as they were, they went willingly, begging the troops to try to save them even as they were being injected with __ as a “precautionary” measure, placed into full body restraints, sedated, and loaded into a waiting prisoner transport. They cried the whole way, and Aldis could almost taste their terror. They believed they were evil, thought their new status meant they could—would—turn on those they loved unprovoked. They honestly believed the government would “cure” them, and give them their lives back.

Then there were those who didn’t know what they were, but didn’t care for the government’s assessment of them either. In a disconnected corner of his mind that did its best to stay out of the emotional fray, Aldis couldn’t stop himself from marveling at the evolution of their reaction. Some had already disagreed with the government’s method of “dealing” with the “infectious threat” and were all the more horrified (combined with a side helping of vindicated) when soldiers turned up on their doorstep to carry out the government’s wishes. Then there were those who had supported the official policy until tit was turned on them. Those folks’ loyalties and beliefs did a complete 180 and did it fast. They were quite possibly the angriest.

And then there were those people who were just resigned and those filled with a sense of terrible purpose. 

It went on, week in, week out, and for a long time he didn’t know if he could cope. 

There was one bright spot, thought. Sgt. Ryers, rather than being a threat turned out to be a link to the Licinian underground on Earth. The same faction that had helped Aldis undergo training were now available to him as an information conduit. Now if he actually did learn something, he’d have a way to get the information out.

Of course, it wasn’t until he despaired ever learning anything useful, and started to have fantasies about outing himself just to avoid going on one more horrible, life destroying raid, it happened. Alexis Hanniger, M.D., Ph.D., architect of their destruction, approached him in the mess hall one day. 

From there things moved quickly. Hanniger—was a flirt. She was also terrifying and inspired fear in Colonels twice Aldis’ age.

“Albion Hayes, I’ve heard a lot about you,” she cooed that first day. “I’m very interested in your travels prior to joining us. Whatever you can tell… I want to hear it.”

It didn’t take Aldis long to figure out Hanniger had her own ulterior motives and overriding suspicions, but by that point, it was too late. He’d been sucked into her orbit, with no way out. He could only hope the _secrets_ she cooed to him over drinks, at dinner, in bed… would prove useful.

~~~

**August 2015—Southern Maine, Earth**  
“Something tells me you weren’t always in this line of work?”

Nicki froze as she stepped through the doorway into the kitchen, carefully setting the stack of dishes she was carrying on the counter just inside the door in an attempt to mask her reaction. The question wasn’t unexpected, nor was the person doing the asking. Mr. Picardo had been quiet and observant since he arrived—inquisitive, yet contemplative, reflective. He was the type to mull things over before asking questions. Hesitant to pry until given a good reason.

And the commotion at dinner had been as good a reason as any. A young woman had showed up on their doorstep, disoriented and desperate. It had taken Alona about ten seconds to figure out she’d escaped from a PC (Boston, they would later figure out), but had somehow had her wits about her enough to seek them out. 

It had taken another hour-and-a-half of surreptitious and clandestine phone calls and tests to get the woman in Jeff Padalecki’s care and figure out she’d been dosed with loquipex and a handful of other drugs ORDA was using to “prepare” their “patients” for treatment, but hadn’t actually been given the “cure.” It was still anyone’s guess if the woman had managed to cover her tracks, and Nicki could already feel herself gearing up for the long waiting game that would follow. For all she knew, ORDA already knew where they were and what they were doing and they were just toying with them, waiting until Nicki or Alona did something too incriminating to ignore, or worse, waiting until they had a critical mass of Naiian refugees assembled and then striking to take them all out at once. 

The last thing Nicki _wanted_ to do was go ten rounds with a concerned citizen, or worse, a government spy.

She took a deep breath, opting to go with levity as her first line of defense. “You mean as a pastry chef?” she asked teasingly, turning with the slightly burned pie tin in her hands. Nicki shot Mr. Picardo a rueful smile.

“I meant innkeeping,” he replied gently taking a few steps forward. He was hanging back, standing clear across the dining room, almost hovering in the hallway entrance. He was being very careful— _or very respectful_ —keeping to the public portions of the building, not crowding her space, so she couldn’t kick him out or accuse him of threatening or harassing her. 

_He could just be nice, or polite, or feeling a little awkward. It doesn’t mean he’s here to turn you in._ She shook her head pushing the voice away. Too many years in hiding, living on the razors edge, after more than a decade of balancing her life in a very _delicate_ area of law had conditioned that response out of her. She couldn’t afford to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, at least not without zealously guarding against the worst case scenario, not when her life and the lives of so many others depended on it.

“I’m sorry Mr. Picardo, are our facilities not up to your standards?” she began putting a hint of defensiveness and dollops of confusion and hurt into her tone. “We really are sorry about the interruption at dinner. It was quite—unexpected. If you feel the quality of your stay has been compromised we can give a full refund or upgrade you to the Rose Suite.” She felt her brow furrow as she awaited his response. The act was so ingrained at this point, she almost believed she was just the dedicated owner of a Bed and Breakfast, perplexed by a seemingly dissatisfied customer.

“Oh, no, no, no,” her guest replied, holding out his palms in supplication. “I meant nothing of the sort. My stay has been wonderful so far, and I am looking forward to the rest of it.” He smiled, “I haven’t felt this relaxed in years!”

She smiled in reply. “Thank you, we do aim to make you, our valued guests, as comfortable as possible.” Nicki looked down at her hands and realized she was still awkwardly clutching the pie tin.

Mr. Picardo chuckled. “I have no doubt. I feel quite at home.” His expression sobered.

Nicki braced herself for the worst. 

“I just meant, in my experience—and I’ve stayed at a lot of Inns and B&Bs—most people get into this line of work as a second career or a retirement. And then the way you handled yourself—someone showing up out of the blue disoriented and afraid, interrupting your dinner—most people would have been scared or at least flustered, but you took it in stride.” He looked down at his hands, which were clasped in front of him, fidgeting. “I just thought there must be a story there, either that or you’ve had to deal with an awful lot of unruly guests. I—I really am sorry to pry, but I just wanted to make sure everything is really okay.”

She let out a small breath and bit the inside of her lip. It was a fair observation. A good story—one that could actually be real. Mr. Picardo certainly was looking a bit embarrassed, exactly like a curious (and slightly rattled) hotel guest who had just asked his host a rather personal question and only just realized how invasive it was after that fact might look. Then again, it was the same tack an investigator or agent might take fishing for information, trying to convince Nicki to lower her guard, spill enough information that would help justify taking further action against her and Alona. “You’re pretty observant, Mr. Picardo,” she hedged.

“Oh, Bob, please. I’m on vacation,” he protested.

“Bob,” Nicki acknowledged, leaning against the wall and focusing again on the pie tin in her hands as she turned it over and over as she figured out how to proceed. Whatever Mr. Picar— _Bob’s_ motivations, evading his questions, or acting cagey and defensive would only raise alarm. This wasn’t the first time someone had asked, nor would it likely be the last. She’d just have to stick to the same story they’d told everyone else, as story that hewed as close to the truth as possible to strengthen its authenticity and consistency. “Well, you’re right,” she said at last, shrugging. “My wife and I were attorneys, lawyers the both of us. It was a while ago in a different part of the country. We both loved our jobs, but we knew there were some… risks with that line of employment. Disgruntled clients, angry opposing counsel, irate family members—it’s an adversarial process after all, and no matter how careful you are, sometimes people get _upset._ “ 

She glanced up at Bob through her eyelashes. He was standing, listening intently, and looking a bit subdued. Good… he seemed genuinely curious about what she had to say. His body language didn’t hint at any ulterior motives, impatience, or frustration.

“Honestly, I always thought if either of us were going to have trouble, it would be me.”

Bob made a small noise at that, but caught himself before he said anything.

Nicki looked up and smiled, “I worked in criminal law,” she supplied.

“Oh,” he answered. “I’m guessing there was a problem, but it wasn’t on your end.”

“My wife wound up with a stalker. A stalker with gang connections. There were… threats, break-ins, she was followed in her car. Eventually there was an attack. We were… shaken, terrified, violated. It was bad, but it could have been much worse. The attacker wound up going to prison, but…”

Bob blinked expectantly, seeming to hang on her every word, his face bearing an expression of genuine concern.

“With her stalker’s connections, that didn’t do much. It didn’t take long for us to realize we could hang onto our old lives and spend every moment looking over our shoulders, or we could move, try something different and new. So, we did.” She punctuated the story with a shrug, hoping it would discourage Bob from asking more, but knowing from the twitch of his mouth and fingers, she wouldn’t be so lucky.

“Why not try to set up a law practice here?” he asked, glancing around the Bed and Breakfast’s spacious interior.

“That would be a little too public. In this day and age, practicing law means having your name and contact information listed online as part of the licensing process. Trust me, we thought about it, but it would have pretty much undone the benefits of moving far, far away,” she answered. “Besides, after that, we both felt we deserved a treat. Running this place gives us time, a luxury we certainly didn’t have in our former careers. We’ve got a beautiful home, a steady stream of interesting new people to meet, excuses to cook, create artwork, and indulge in all the hobbies we’d been neglecting for years… It’s a pretty nice gig. Besides, being an Innkeeper in a tourist town like this creates strong community ties, and that offers us a degree of protection we’re not likely to find elsewhere.”

“You mean, if something goes wrong, people will notice,” Bob observed.

“Exactly.”

He gave her a strange little smile, apparently satisfied with the answer, and excused himself. 

Nicki found herself breathing a sigh of relief. She’d gotten pretty good at judging the threat level of guests, and Bob didn’t _feel_ like a threat, but the pointed nature of his questions and comments, the way he tried to ingratiate himself, his disarming personality, all raised Nicki’s hackles.

“We could ask him to leave,” Alona said later that night when their latest charge was squared away in Jeff’s keeping. “We’ve done it before when it felt like people were getting too close.”

“Hmm,” Nicki agreed. “I don’t know. There’s just—my gut tells me he’s dangerous, but it also says he’s not a threat. That we want to keep him around.”

“In that case, how ‘bout you come to bed, and we worry about this in the morning?” Alona asked, sealing her question with a kiss, hands questing under Nicki’s top, unhooking her bra and seeking out her nipples.

“Mmm,” Nicki answered. “I like how you think.”

Only they didn’t talk about Bob the next day. Or the day after that… but still he stayed. He hadn’t checked out. And the nagging feeling in the back of Nicki’s mind grew and grew until she couldn’t ignore it anymore. It wasn’t suspicion so much as her subconscious insisting she address his presence. The longer she waited, the worse the sensation became.

Finally on the third day after her encounter with Bob the nagging feeling grew too great to ignore. So, Nicki invited him into the library, set up the jammer and the forcefield and confronted him. To be honest she wasn’t 100% sure _what_ he was, or whose side he was on, but she couldn’t let the situation linger. 

“Okay, I’ve waited. I’ve been patient, but everything about you tweaks my brain the wrong way, and I can’t wait any longer,” she said as soon as Bob was inside.

He didn’t answer, just looked at her quizzically.

“Look, I know you’re not Naiian. You’re also not a human whose been dosed by ORDA to have Naiian capabilities. And you definitely saw enough the other night with that intake to figure out exactly who we are, so if you’re a government spy, you’re playing a very long game or you already would have turned us in.” She crossed her arms and fell back into one of the chairs. “Right now, I’m finding myself somewhat lacking in patience, so you’ll forgive me for not going through the whole song and dance and waiting game and just tell me who the hell you are and what you want.”

Bob waited patiently, still standing, and let out a weary sigh when she finished. “I am so sorry to have kept you waiting. I—I wanted to tell you the first night, but then with the commotion, I wanted to make sure we were safe and hadn’t been followed. And since then, I’ve been waiting for an important update, which I just received this morning.”

“You care to explain?”

“I know who you are,” Bob replied.

“I figured,” Nicki acknowledged with a one-shouldered shrug. “That’s not really the question. What _I_ want to know is who are _you_ and why am I reading you as both dangerous and not a threat at the same time?”

“Because I’m not a threat to you,” Bob said, taking a few steps towards Nicki’s chair before thinking better of it.

She leaned back and crossed her legs, letting her left hand drift down to the holster concealed in the side of the chair. “With the forcefield and jammer on, this room is essentially soundproofed,” she threatened closing her hand around the grip, ready to draw.

“I’m sorry,” he replied. “I work for the Licinians.”

Nicki’s finger tightened on the grip, completing the draw without any conscious input to do so. That explained it. Subtle mannerisms, speech patterns… the Licinians were very _distinctive_ and anyone who’d spent significant time with them tended to pick them up. That was probably 

“But not the ones who are backing ORDA. A different sect. The same sect that helped our mutual friend, Aldis, learn what he needed to return to Earth and infiltrate ORDA,” Bob added, holding his hands up in surrender.

Nicki re-holstered the weapon to avoid dropping it. Of the many scenarios that had played out in her head… “Aldis found someone to teach him? Wait, Aldis is on Earth?”

“Yes, he trained, returned to Aurora, and came here. His mission is to figure out a way to facilitate the safe passage of all Naiians remaining on Earth.”

“And where, exactly, do you come into this?” Nicki asked, still skeptical. The story sounded plausible, but also too good to be true.

“I worked for Admiral Hodge, Aldis’ father. When his family was disappeared, I narrowly avoided getting caught up in the purge. He’d sent me on an assignment—I thought it was odd at the time, looking back, he was trying to save my life. About three days after Aldis left Earth, the faction he’d made contact with reached out to me. They’d already been operating on Earth. They’d been working with General Ferris, but after her disappearance they went to ground. Aldis made contact with their leadership, and they tapped me as a loyal human and one of the few with a still-active security clearance…. And before you ask, yes, I’m _sure_ I wasn’t followed here.”

“So why make contact _now_ “ Nicki asked. “If you are who you say you are, I find it hard to believe you just found us.”

“I didn’t,” Bob admitted. “In the early days when people were still disappearing left and right but before ORDA started rounding everyone up in droves, three cells were tasked at finding the location of key Naiians and allies still on Earth. Despite their best efforts, the only ones found were you and Alona and Dr. Padalecki. An executive decision was made to stop the search to avoid endangering those in hiding. My superiors figured if it came down to it, you three would be the key leaders.”

“I appreciate your superiors’ discretion, but you still haven’t answered my question,” Nicki repeated, sitting up straighter. “Why. _Now._ “

“Because four days ago we received mission critical intelligence from Colonel Hodge. He’s been in a precarious situation for a while now because Alexis Hanniger took an interest in him.”

“Oh fuck,” Nicki muttered, all the air leaving her lungs in a strangled sigh. Through their bond, she could feel Alona’s panic and concern. Nicki tried to project reassurance, but it didn’t seem to be working very well. The only thing keeping Alona from breaking down the door and storming into the room was the forcefield. “How bad—”

“It’s not 100% certain his position has been compromised, but in the last week or so, he’s gathered enough intel to come up with a workable plan… and it appears action now rather than later, would be prudent. What I was waiting for, once I was sure officers from the Boston PC weren’t going to break down your door, was the confirmation I received this morning. My superiors have managed to smuggle in 100 symbiotes.”

“Excuse me?” Nicki exclaimed. “Did you say 100?”

“Yes.”

“Symbiotes.”

“Yes.”

“That—that could actually go a long way,” Nicki admitted, dumbfounded. In two years of active searching she’d found a little less than two dozen. 

“We are hoping each symbiote can evacuate 100 people without exhausting the user, given the time constraints you’re likely to face. So, with that 100, we’re looking at 10,000.”

“But even with the treatment program, estimates are we’ve probably got at least 50,000 of us left… that’s assuming everyone is willing to leave.”

“You also need to know the treatment is wearing off, at least on some individuals. Naiians are coming back to themselves. Reverting. Some seem to be recovering memories,” Bob replied.

“So the rumors are true?” 

Bob nodded.

“And Misha?”

“Our sources say he _is_ alive. However, I do not personally know whose side he’s on.”

Nicki let it sink in; it wasn’t really a shock. She’d known deep down that the stories and rumors _felt_ true. She’d just hoped… But there would be time to cross that bridge later. 

“This morning, I received the coordinates for three additional caches left behind by your Licinian progenitors, caches we have reason to believe have not been raided. We are also able to assist in your travel if needed, although I assume you will probably wish to use your own contacts.”

“You’d be right about that,” Nicki agreed. “What sort of time frame are we looking at?”

“Two to three weeks based on Aldis’ estimates. I anticipate your travels will take at least a week, probably closer to ten days, so… if you wish to have time to prepare…”

“Guess I’d better get ready to lead now,” Nicki answered. “Or at least I do, if I believe you.” She cocked one eyebrow expectantly. It was a code Aldis had set up with them on the road between Seattle and Washington, D.C., back during the first purge. There was no way to know for sure if he remembered it, or if he was in any sort of position to reply, but it was worth a shot.

And Bob didn’t disappoint. “I believe this is what you’re looking for?” he asked, producing a post card bearing the outline of Texas on one side and Aldis’ birth date and serial number on the other. 

“He’s in Texas?” Nicki asked, but she had her answer. It was time to get to work.

~~~

**August 2015—Fh’ax’klkasgi Minor**  
The gravity tore at Jensen’s feet, invisible hands reaching up with each step to bind him to the ground, suck him down. He was pulling so many Gs just standing there he had to fight for every single breath, his chest threatening to collapse against the pressure, even though the atmosphere was so thin that even with his Naiian biology he struggled to find enough suitable molecules for respiration. His back was freezing, his face, was melting, and he could see the curvature of the planet in front of him, as the dusty orange metal of its surface gave way to a brilliant blue sunrise as the giant orb of the systems blue giant rose and filled the pink-hued star-studded sky. It was an impossible world, like so many others in the universe, yet impossibly unique. It was not deemed habitable or suitable for life, yet here he was in nothing more than a summer-weight uniform and combat boots, no space suit or life-support in sight.

If he stayed here much longer he would die. It was a certainty, hovering in the back of his brain, steady and sure, prodding him on. Even now, he could feel the messages to his body getting scrambled as they crossed the telepathic bridge over the gaps in his spine. First it was his left foot coming down too hard. Two steps later, he was standing on the outside of his foot. Two more after that, his foot flopped forward, and he nearly fell, struggling as he pulled his weight off his instep and righted himself. That last step tore ligaments.

If he could feel pain in his left leg, he was pretty sure he’d be in agony. As it was, in this environment he couldn’t feel his left leg _at all_. Not enough atmosphere meant his brain was conserving resources and his procogitol levels were dropping. If he stayed here much longer he’d lose control over his lower body. And at this rate, that would happen _before_ he suffocated or succumbed to the intense gravity. It would be bad enough dying on a barren rock that wasn’t supposed to support life. It would be embarrassing beyond belief to get captured and killed by the enemy on a barren rock that wasn’t supposed to support life because he was too stubborn to listen to his body and pushed himself until he was paralyzed.

He managed to right his foot and kept going. But he had to actively watch his foot placement with each step, and that was dangerous. Ten steps later, he barked his right knee against a thigh-high stalagmite-like formation that jutted from the planet’s surface. A distant part of his mind was curious as to their formation, wondered what series of events over billions of years had formed this improbable world and better yet, why and how it retained the tiny amount of atmosphere it did, just enough to let him survive there, however briefly. The rest of him winced because he’d hit his knee hard enough to feel more than pressure and under the circumstances… that was very, very bad.

As it was, he was probably going to need surgery on the ankle. And that was assuming he hadn’t done anything worse to himself. It wasn’t like he’d feel it. 

Katie would be furious. 

Hell, Katie was going to be furious _period, full stop_. She didn’t exactly approve of the way Jensen treated his body like it was disposable. In her mind he was being reckless and showing suicidal tendencies. It didn’t matter how much explaining Jensen did, Katie still tied his behavior back to the early days after… When he’d been trying to give up and even Misha’s last words, his _voice_ echoing in the back of Jensen’s mind didn’t seem to be enough to convince Jensen to keep going.

Jensen was pretty sure that was his best friend Katie talking, and not the rational doctor and seasoned combat veteran. Yet she always came out and said it with her CMO hat on, and that made people _concerned_ and had the rest of the Council giving Jensen either concerned stares (or annoyed glares in the case of Gen, who seemed to see through him), and then Jensen felt guilty and had to apologize.

It had nothing to do with Misha or wanting to die. 

No, that wasn’t true.

It had a lot, maybe _everything_ to do with Misha, but not in the way anyone seemed to think—except maybe Genevieve. Somewhere along the way Jensen had, not moved on, because Misha and Misha’s death wasn’t something he could _move on_ from, but absorbed. The meaning, the intent behind Misha’s last wishes, his final order had become a part of Jensen and he had _learned_ from Misha’s example. If Misha could throw all of himself into fighting, winning, if Misha could put his life, his soul, his future, and every fiber of his being on the line, then Jensen could do it too. He had to; it was the only way to honor Misha’s sacrifice. And that meant it was difficult to use something as trivial as… injury. It wasn’t that Jensen wanted to die, or didn’t want to live, but that he could not stop at anything short of giving his all. It was just that even with advanced healing and some regenerative capabilities, his physical Naiian body was rather fragile compared to what he asked of it. Sometimes he was a bit…

Yeah, Katie was gonna be _pissed_ when he got back.

 _Got back._ That was kind of the problem right now, wasn’t it? 

A strong wind whipped up, seemingly out of nowhere and sent metallic orange dust blasting sideways against Jensen. Bracing himself against it with his good leg, he shielded himself with one hand and looked over his shoulder. Sure enough the R team was right behind him, gaining slightly as he paused. _Goddamnit!_ They’d known. Sure, Mac herself had seen ORDA officers on Gastralus. They’d known the humans, or their Licinian allies had figured out how to give humans the ability to adapt, at least for some time, but this… It didn’t seem to be wearing off, and it didn’t seem to have any reasonable limits. 

_ORDA’s modified humans seemed to be adapting to, and processing, the environment better than Jensen._

Jensen’s tolerances tended towards the extreme even among Naiians, and while he could see the ORDA R team was struggling, they were still compensating, still holding on. Neither incapacitated nor dead. And Jensen was running out of places to go. There were only so many planets (and moons, asteroids, and other bits of space junk) with inhospitable conditions that Jensen _knew_ he could survive that also weren’t inconvenient due to location, jurisdictional control, or hidden bases that he didn’t want ORDA to know about. That left him with very few options. 

He could stand and fight. But there were still four of them and only one of him (and he was injured, even if he couldn’t _feel_ it).

Or he could go somewhere else, someplace _mobile_. A ship.

_But which one?_

He reached out and ran a cursory check through the friendly ships he could reach. Given his condition, the distance, and how well equipped each ship was to handle his needs... There were really only three options, and if he didn’t want to start an interplanetary incident (one that might not get resolved in his favor), then there was really only one option. It was a shitty option, but it still beat the alternatives. 

Mind made up, Jensen disentangled himself from the stalagmite and set off at a run, ignoring the rather awful things his left foot was doing every time he touched ground. When he was confident he had enough distance between him and his pursuers, he reached out and let the wormhole connect, stumbling to a halt as the aperture opened in front of him. He did his best to foreworn the others.

Even then, he wasn’t surprised to find himself surrounded, the muzzle of every gun on the bridge pointed at him even as he skidded to a stop in front of the lifts. Someone screamed, high pitched and terrified as he straightened up in their midst and watched the bridge officers swivel around to look at him. 

The aperture snapped closed behind him yielding a little more noise and displacement than he would have liked, but it was understandable under the circumstances. After all, his body and brain were starving and in pain thanks to the planet he’d just left. 

The noise earned him a few more raised muzzles behind him if the tingling sensation on the back of his neck was any indication.  
“Oh holy frakking crap,” a familiar voice said as Roberts forced her way out from between two Corporals who were doing their level best to protect her. She brought her hands up over their rifles and shoved _down_. Neither seemed to notice and kept their muzzles steadfastly pointed at Jensen’s chest. Suddenly annoyed, Roberts turned to one of them and hissed, “You have your weapons trained on a general!” _Idiots!_ was clearly implied if left unspoken.

Jensen stood frozen, hands raised.

It took a few moments for Jensen’s uniform or Roberts’ words to sink in and register, but eventually, about half the crew, including the two Corporals in front of Roberts, lowered their weapons. He was pleased to see those arrayed in a semicircle between him and Harris hadn’t moved a millimeter. 

“Ackles, what the fuck are you doing on my ship? And why did you drop in on the bridge unannounced?” Harris demanded, her voice hovering somewhere between pissed and amused. 

“Limited options I don’t have time to explain right now,” he said by way of nonanswer, tipping his head at Harris and then Roberts before surveying the rest of the bridge crew. Upon identifying the helmsman, a woman about Mac’s age who was still concentrating on her post looking decidedly unruffled by recent events, he said. “Lieutenant, I need you to be ready to move this vessel two klicks from its current location on command.” Without waiting to see if the lieutenant followed the order, he turned back to Harris, “Or you prepare for company. We’ve got 69 seconds or less, but it’s your ship,” he added with a one-shouldered shrug. 

“Damnit Jensen!” Roberts hissed, half under her breath, probably hoping her subordinates ignored the blatant disrespect of rank and chain of command. 

Harris, in contrast, just steepled her fingers and cocked one eyebrow. “How many _guests_ and what kind?” she asked with a resigned sigh.

“A full R team, ORDA special forces, minus the two I took out so far, coming in hot and heavily armed—”

Harris’ eyebrow rose even further.

Roberts swore under her breath in Phvanzi followed by Russian.

“But they might be tired since I just ran them across Fh’ax’klkasgi Minor,” he shrugged. “Twelve seconds.”

Harris glanced at Roberts, carried out a conversation that could have just as easily been communicated entirely in eyebrows as it was telepathic, and turned to the Helmsman. “Lieutenant Lawrence, maintain course. Security, go to red alert, prepare to surround and subdue heavily armed, trained, human soldiers with chemical enhancements. Call medical and four extra security teams to the bridge, and please let General Ackles through the perimeter,” she added almost as an afterthought.

The MPs parted and Jensen limped through earning concerned glares from both Harris and Roberts. He was pretty sure he heard Roberts on the comm again to medical. At this point he was just grateful Katie wasn’t on board, although that just meant his lecture would be a little delayed.

Jensen stopped and turned on the other side of the MPs as two more security teams came running onto the bridge, and not a moment too soon. The last team to arrive had just managed to train their weapons on the most likely place someone hot on Jensen’s heels would he likely to open a wormhole, when an exit aperture opened with a loud _snick_ and six people in ORDA uniforms tumbled out.

The wormhole closed behind them with a loud pop, almost snapping shut on the last person through.  
The Naiians on the bridge collectively flinched and grimaced as their minds brushed up against the oh-so-wrong, pseudo-Naiian feel of the drugged humans’ minds. Jensen was glad they had some Auroran humans among their MPs, as it provided an extra level of insurance. Even if all the Naiians reacted to an unpleasant telepathic phenomenon, the humans would be there with steady hands and clear minds. 

“On behalf of the sovereign planet of Aurora, her ruling Council, and the Auroran Defense Forces, you are under arrest for trespass on the ADF Collins, the Auroran flag ship. You are surrounded. Surrender your weapons!” The Captain in charge of the bridge security crew announced as the other teams closed in on the six new arrivals. 

The ORDA troops, however, had yet to move or respond. They had more or less fallen out of the aperture in a jumbled heap. Jensen could feel how different their minds felt compared to just a few minutes before. The artificial neurotransmitters and temporary gene therapies were wearing off at an alarming rate. Two of the minds felt purely human, and another three were only vaguely Naiian-ish—Jensen doubted any of them would be able to open a default interplanatary wormhole, let alone breathe a thin sulfuric atmosphere. He could see lesions that looked like mix of sunburn, acid burns, and frostbite on their exposed skin. The mods were wearing off faster than their bodies could process the toxic-to-humans gasses that lingered in their bodies. 

Hand slapping against his personal comm as he activated the all-call channel, Jensen called out, “Medical emergency on the bridge. Modified humans in respiratory distress. Send an emergency team with a human specialist stat!” 

The ORDA officers were crawling over each other, attempting to resuscitate one of their fallen comrades, on the whole ignoring the MPs surrounding them and the MPs trained on them. 

Another aperture opened, just inside the starboard bridge doors, this one silent, almost gentle, and two doctors stepped out, on Naiian, one human, followed by several field medics. They quickly took in the scene and rushed towards the line of MPs to reach their patients. 

The world seemed to slow and narrow in hyper focus, the events happening around Jensen distorted as time became fluid. In the background he could hear voices of people he knew talking at normal speeds, carrying on verbal conversations. He could feel his fellow Naiians’ minds skipping around the room, some reaching out to other parts of the ship, others honed in on their prisoners, still others reaching out into space, far beyond the distant stars searching for threats, checking to see if they were being followed, tracked.

“Raise a full-spectrum jamming field and hold it in place. We don’t want anyone tracking us, following, or getting so much as a nanosecond lock on our position, you understand? Do not drop that field until the prisoners’ gear is collected and disabled,” Roberts barked at some unseen tech. 

“Helm, adjust course to random heading, and institute evasion pattern gamma. Sit rep and status report once we’re at least two sectors away,” General Harris ordered. 

“Sir, what about position update to the fleet or Aurora Command?” someone, the comm officer, probably, asked, sounding fairly alarmed. 

“We’ll open an aperture to command post-gamma.”

“But—”

“One wormhole is far less likely to be intercepted than a multi-contact, broad spectrum comm blast, and we don’t have to drop jamming to do it,” Harris barked back. 

“Release your weapons and raise your hands if you are able!” commanded the MP Captain.

“Medical, let us through!” one of the doctors was barking. 

Jensen looked around, seeing but not seeing as elsewhere time was speeding up, moving too fast, even as people seemed to move in slow motion around him.

Crewmembers were turning back to their stations. 

MPs were cuffing one of the healthier ORDA officers, medical had reached the most severely ill prisoner. 

But there was something else. Something more. Even as his body strained with the need to stand down, adrenaline and blood sugar crashing as spots formed in his vision from the prolonged impaired respiration, something tugged at him. Insistent. An alarm growing louder and louder, more frantic. 

They were missing something. 

There were six survivors. _Six_. But two felt human and three barely registered. 

Leaving one. 

“No,” Jensen said aloud, his voice calm and detached, his right hand drew his sidearm while his left shot out in front of him in the near-universal sign for “stop,” an aperture blossoming just beyond his fingertips as he opened a wormhole to the void out of reflex. 

The distinctive whine of a plasma rifle rang out, firing at him but discharging into the wormhole. 

The equally familiar splash of a Fropali stunner rang out, followed by a near-simultaneous thump as the MP Captain shouted “stand down!”

It was all over before anyone had a chance to scream.

Feeling the too-Naiian mind of the sixth ORDA officer blink out as it was overcome with the stun blast, he dropped his left hand, and with it, the wormhole slapped silently shut, displacing just enough air to ruffle a few MPs’ hair. His right hand held the xDM steady, unshaking. “Don’t try that again,” he ordered, finally meeting the eyes of the still-conscious R team members.

Their de facto leader nodded. 

“Jesus Christ!” Roberts swore in the background as more troops swarmed onto the bridge. 

“Ramirez,” Harris said to one of the new arrivals. “Please get the general off the bridge and off his feet and make sure a medical team gives him a full scan. Don’t let him overrule you,” she added. 

Ramirez nodded, and Jensen felt hands closing around his arms, vague pressure somewhere on his back, the minds of those around him projecting safety and nonthreatening attitudes. 

“This way, sir. Just let us get you there,” someone was saying to him. 

That was when he realized he couldn’t move or feel anything below the site of injury, he was sweating, and it was getting really difficult to breathe or stay conscious. 

“Set up guards in sickbay until they’re cleared for the brig,” Harris was saying. “And would someone please get that _thing_ off my bridge before looking at it gives someone a heart attack!”

Jensen didn’t have to look to know she was talking about the plasma rifle.

~~~

An hour and a half later found Jensen more or less conscious and slowly coming back to himself. He’d been through the familiar, miserable cycle of Glucagon injection and puking and had endured three separate doctors tutting, fussing, and scolding him over dehydration, respiratory metabolite levels, and the state of his bad leg. His leg of course was going to require surgery and since he couldn’t feel it to tell if he further injured it, they had him strapped up in an immobilizer with strict instructions to stay in the wheelchair this time.

He kind of hate that his reputation preceded him everywhere he went, but then again these doctors were nothing compared to the reaction Katie would have when she finally got her hands on him. 

The doctors needn’t have worried. He still didn’t have any feeling back in his good leg, and experience told him it would be a good 24 hours on the optimistic side, for his body chemistry to sort itself out enough for him to get up and walk anywhere. With surgery looming it was undoubtedly longer, even with his accelerated Naiian healing. 

Of course, now that Jensen was feeling more-or-less clear headed, he was stuck waiting. Waiting for Harris to tell him what she’d found out. Waiting to tell his side of the story. Waiting to ask what the hell was going on. It was just like Harris to leave him hanging too. She’d always wanted Jensen to learn a kind of patience he’d never possessed. Unable to pace, and unwilling to risk straining his still-frayed senses and exhausted telepathy, he settled in to wait, staring up at the ceiling, letting his mind wander.

The door opened with a subtle swish. “You wanna tell me what the fuck happened, and why you brought six Earth-loyal mod humans onto my ship?” Harris asked, stepping inside and leaning against the wall. The door closed behind her with another swish and they were alone. T

The perks of being a General. You got your own private room in sickbay if there was room to spare. 

Jensen jerked his eyes from the weld junction he’d been focusing on and looked to Harris, taking in the barely concealed weariness and something else—she seemed deeply _unsettled_. “Is this conversation secure?” he asked.

Harris sighed wearily and slapped her hand against a concealed panel in the wall, tapping at the controls. When she pulled away moments later, there was a faint hum of white noise—positive interference to accompany the anti-eavesdropping measures, jamming signal, and cessation of surveillance mechanisms that Harris had also keyed in. 

For a moment, Jensen was taken back to Earth, an ORDA uniform on his back, cool aluminum lab benches under his hands, artificial light thanks to being so far underground—just him and Katie alone in a lab chatting, discovering the secrets of their heritage with the hum of the autoclave and the whir of the centrifuge humming in the background, protecting their secrets.

The moment passed and he was back in the present aboard the _Collins_ , his body a burned out husk, with Danni Harris’ eyes boring into him.

“You wanna tell me why we’re having this conversation off the record, General?” he asked skeptically.

“You wanna tell _me_ why you violated a dozen protocols and led a genocidal ORDA Reconnaissance team onto the bridge if my flagship, not to mention that in doing so you violated one of our most important safety precautions prohibiting multiple Generals from being on the same ship at any given time, _General_?” Harris challenged, raising an eyebrow.

“Danni, you knew that rule about generals on ships was never gonna last long in practice,” he challenged.

“Quit missing the point, you know what I’m talking about,” she replied as she pulled up a chair, turned it around, and sat down next to Jensen’s bed, straddling its back with a casual ease Jensen could never pull off. “You said it was a long story, so explain.”

“I picked up a tail when I was on Ny’modila. Don’t know how. I didn’t sense anyone human or Naiian or mod around,” he scratched the back of his neck. “Kinda makes me worry what allies ORDA might have picked up.” 

“Phvanzi? Orellatai? Ecati?” Harris asked.

“No,” Jensen shook his head, bit his lip, and leveled a glare at Harris. “There’s no way in hell the Ecati would ever do anything to help ORDA unless they were under duress, and maybe not even then. They’re empathic. What ORDA does to people, the impact it has,” he shook his head again, more emphatically this time. “I don’t know who it was, and it’s a problem, but it’s not our biggest problem.”

“That’s for sure,” Harris murmured under her breath. At Jensen’s concerned, inquisitive head tilt, she waved her hand dismissively. “That’s a story for later. First, you spill.”

“I picked up a tail. I realized it, and I left. Hopped away to a different planet, different sector, different system. I threw up decoys, but in retrospect it wasn’t enough.” He looked at Harris, holding her gaze. “I don’t know if I—or we—have gotten complacent or if ORDA has gotten better with tracking us, or if the standard tricks are getting too predictable, but on the third world I went to, there was an 8-person R team. Whether they were waiting for me or followed me I don’t know. I didn’t spot them until I’d been there for a minute, so it could have gone either way.”

“Eight-person... there were six—” Harris started.

“I tried to lose them. And when that didn’t work in short order, I fought them. I killed two. But eight to one odds and them armed with plasma rifles,” Jensen let the statement hang there and shrugged.

Harris scooted her chair forward, dragging it against the floor. “Did they hit you?” she asked, suddenly worried. She reached out to Jensen, patting at his exposed skin.

“No,” Jensen replied. When Harris’ hands didn’t stop in their quest to inspect him, he reached out and grasped her hands gently, stilling them. “Danni, no.” He shook his head for emphasis. 

She glared at him. 

“I wouldn’t lie about that. And trust me, if I’d missed getting hit the med staff would have caught it. I’ve had every millimeter of my body prodded and inspected. They know better than to take that kind of chance. _I_ know better.”

“But they got close,” Harris supplied. 

“Too close. I could feel the heat of the blast, and considering they were aiming for parts of my body that have unimpaired temperature sensation, I was particularly un-thrilled with that arrangement. So I ran, tried to outlast them. Figured I could go to a world extreme enough that their drugs couldn’t compensate,” Jensen admitted.

“And?”

“And I ran through two class fours; a class three moon with a high pressure, corrosive atmosphere; and a class five.”

Harris’ eyes went wide. “We didn’t know—didn’t think... None of them have shown...” she stammered, trying to collect her thoughts. 

“I ran them across the surface of Fh’ax’klkasgi Minor. Ran them. For somewhere between 2 and 5 klicks,” Jensen added. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that before. They were struggling, hurting, but they kept coming. I tripped, blew out my ankle on my bad leg. The pressure was so bad my lungs were trying to collapse, and I started having problems with procogitol production.”

“Shit! Jensen, are you—”

“They don’t think I did anything permanent beyond whatever residuals from the ankle after surgery,” he reassured. Then smiling conspiratorially added, “Although you can lay off the baby sitting, since I won’t be going anywhere unaided for a week or two.” 

They shared a bitter smile. 

“I don’t know that I couldn’t have outlasted them, but it got to the point where I didn’t want to risk it, and I didn’t have many options. Couldn’t really stay and fight because at that point I was injured. So jumping someplace with superior numbers seemed to be the thing to do,” he explained. 

“And you picked here?” Harris asked, pointing at the deck. “Our flagship, my bridge—”

“Yeah, Danni, it was the best of a lot of bad options. I couldn’t risk taking them home. If I opened a wormhole to an allied planet I couldn’t control the circumstances. So I figured a ship was the best option—get out of the way and they just go—” he mimed floating in space with his hands. “Or stay and,” he shrugged, “prisoners.”

“And you had to pick my ship?” Harris asked.

Jensen glared. 

“Okay, _our_ ship?” she corrected. “You couldn’t find a Fropali ship to crash? Or another ally?”

“I thought about it, but the only way I could be sure was if Foalar was onboard, and I only have a general sense of where her ship is. Couldn’t get there reliably in one jump and forgive me for not wanting to dump myself in hard vacuum.” He sighed and looked Harris in the eye. “They may be our allies in that they recognize us and our government and afford us the same rights as anyone else, but their mission first and foremost is neutrality. I have no authority to commandeer a Fropali ship or any other ally’s ship and there’s no guarantee they would have sided with me. It could have cost us an ally or worse, given ORDA the chance to attack and invade one of our allies. We can’t afford that kind of diplomatic incident and to be frank, I couldn’t be sure I’d receive appropriate medical care, at least not without giving ORDA way more information than we ever want them to have.” He looked at her imploringly. “This was the best of a lot of bad options.”

Harris didn’t respond for a good minute, just stared at a point on Jensen’s chest, ruminating. At last, she moved, bobbing her head through a slow nod. 

“I let you choose,” Jensen added, hopeful.

That earned him a scoff. “Yeah you did, and right now I kind of hate you for it.” Looking Jensen in the eye she added, do you know how fucking dangerous it is having Terran prisoners, let alone mods who are active members of ORDA?”

“Yeah,” Jensen replied. “You could have just spaced them.”

“And pass up the opportunity to interrogate them? Especially when we have no clue how they found you?” Harris asked rhetorically. 

“Your ship. Your call,” he shrugged.

“Of course I’ve got half a mind to space them now anyway,” Harris admitted. 

“It would probably be the safest route,” Jensen agreed. “Not to mention they feel... weird... to be around.” He shuddered. “They’re a liability, an immeasurable risk every moment they’re here. No matter how careful we are, we could miss something. They could learn something, and if they ever got free, or if we release them...” Jensen let his voice drift off. He pressed a palm to his forehead closing his eyes at the images of death and destruction that flooded his mind. He’d seen firsthand what ORDA and its allies would do; he couldn’t forget. “Danni, by bringing them here, I may have brought death to our families, our children, I can’t... I am so sorry. Please don’t for a minute think I don’t take the threat seriously. I know what people think, what some people say... that without Misha I just don’t care.” He shook his head emphatically. “But that’s not true. I know what’s at stake. I understand more than most people, and I would never risk that without reason, good reason.”

Harris squeezed his hand, her touch calming. “Jen, I know. Ok. I know, and I never think that. Just like I know if our places were reversed, we’d have done the same things. The problem, of course, with spacing them now is that if anyone finds out...”

“Then we look exactly like the kind of monsters ORDA paints us to be,” Jensen finished for her. “Not to mention we lose a bargaining chip—although I don’t see ORDA ever bargaining with us, not honestly, and it feels... unconscionable to send anyone back to them. What they do to mods is dangerous.”

“Not to mention we have no idea if it’s voluntary,” Harris agreed. 

“It can’t be. Not in a meaningful way. You can’t give informed consent if you don’t know what the risks are, and we know ORDA isn’t telling them the truth or giving them anything near a complete picture,” Jensen added. “How’s the interrogation going, by the way?”

At that, Harris’ face fell, and the ironic smile she’d been sporting slipped away.

“That bad, huh?”

“Their SERE training hasn’t slipped, that’s for sure.”

Jensen quirked an eyebrow. 

“I’ve been able to question three so far... all I got out of the first two was name, rank, and serial number, and the third...”

“Let me guess,” Jensen offered, “a whole lot of cursed insults and swearing about what an unnatural abomination you are?”

“Yup,” Harris agreed. “And then she asked if I was going to slice open her head to dissect her brain.” 

Shuddering, for a moment Jensen was back on Earth, starved, drugged, and half-frozen, strapped to a chair while a so-called doctor calmly told him she was going to dissect him... for the greater good.

“Shit, sorry!” Harris swore. “I totally should have warned you. Fuck!” 

Her voice brought Jensen out of the flashback though, and he blinked his way back to awareness and the present. “It’s seriously okay. Don’t worry about it,” he said dismissively.

“Jensen, don’t. Don’t brush that shit off. I should know better. I just... sometimes I forget,” Harris admitted. “All of that feels like it happened a million lifetimes ago, and there are... it’s not something that defines you.”

Jensen rolled his eyes. Sometimes he wondered if he’d ever be defined by anything other than losing his husband to a spectacular heroic sacrifice. “It really is okay,” he reassured. “At least it means you’re forgetting to blame me for being the reason ORDA can track wormholes.” A stray thought danced across his mind, and he shuddered.

“What?” Harris asked, clearly not wanting to pry. 

“I was just... I’m really glad General Lehne’s faction didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. If they’d realized we were telepathic, if they’d administered the right drugs? I would have died there,” Jensen admitted. 

Harris sat still for a moment and shuddered. “Luckily, ORDA doesn’t seem to have prioritized honesty in science. And for the record, if anyone ever blames you for wormhole tracking, you just point out that little discovery saved their ass and tell them I said to shit the fuck up,” Harris stated. 

“Thanks,” Jensen offered with a little chuckle. “Back to the subject at hand, though, did you get anything else?”

“Oh, same prisoner swore she wouldn’t talk or turn if we _infected_ her,” Harris added complete with air quotes.

“At least we know they’re still using least the same lies,” Jensen mused. 

“Isn’t there a Ferengi Rule of Acquisition about that?” Harris asked. 

“Yeah,” Jensen smiled, “the 60th Rule: keep your lies consistent.”

“Yeah, well that’s about it.”

“You haven’t talked to the other three yet?” Jensen asked, shifting in the bed as spasms started to wrack his bad left side. He breathed through it, knowing by now it was just a side effect of his procogitol levels attempting to equalize. 

Harris raised an eyebrow at him, but bit her lip when he waved her off. “Only the three healthy ones have been cleared by medical,” she said as she reached out to help Jensen reposition his bad leg. 

“Thanks,” he said honestly, grateful he didn’t have to lift its dead weight all on its own.

“It’s looking like the two prisoners who were experiencing withdrawal before they got medical attention might not make it.”

Jensen cringed. 

“My thoughts exactly,” Harris agreed, as she let go of Jensen’s leg. “As much as I’d like to have fewer prisoners to worry about or use this as an example of why you shouldn’t let ORDA and its Licinian allies manipulate you into an unstable hybrid puppet, I’m pretty sure the morale and credibility hit we’ll take if they don’t make it would be near-insurmountable. So, I’m hoping they stabilize despite my better judgment.”

“What a clusterfuck,” Jensen commented around pants. “What about the shooter?” 

Harris’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Medical hasn’t cleared him yet.”

Jensen was planning to ask Harris if she had a theory about what was going on, when there was a knock at the door.

Jensen and Harris turned in unison towards the source of the interruption.

“General Harris, General Ackles,” a young medic with Corporal’s insignia addressed them, saluting each in turn. 

Jensen half-recognized her. She’d been on the bridge… Ramirez, Roberts had called her. Jensen returned the salute, as did Harris, who was looking at Ramirez expectantly. 

“I am really sorry to interrupt you sirs, but Doctor Rothery has something she needs you to see, or at least Gen. Harris, and she says it is extremely urgent,” Ramirez half-stammered. 

“Do you know what it’s about?” Harris asked, at the same time Jensen queried, “Does this have anything to do with our prisoners?”

“I’m sorry sirs,” Ramirez replied, looking genuinely dismayed, “but Doctor Rothery said this is extremely sensitive, top secret, eyes only.”

Harris and Jensen exchanged another look. 

“You should stay here,” she said softly.

“I really shouldn’t,” Jensen replied. “Look, I’m not worried about what they’re going to think. It’s not like we can actually let them go anywhere, and we don’t even know if this has anything to do with the prisoners.”

“Yes we do,” Harris said softly.

And it was true. They’d both felt it. External confirmation was a mere formality at this point. Whatever Dr. Rothery wanted to show them, it had everything to do with the prisoners and it was bad. Really bad. 

“Get my wheelchair, please?” Jensen said to the Ramirez

She nodded and headed off in the direction of the supply rooms. 

“No, _my_ wheelchair, in my pack, and for that matter, bring me the entire pack,” Jensen corrected.

Ramierez’s expression was comical in its disbelief. Jensen could see the moment she almost asked Harris for guidance but decided against it. Instead, she scurried off in the opposite direction and returned moments later with Jensen’s dirty, bloody pack. 

“Thanks,” Jensen said with a genuine smile as he accepted the pack and unzipped the top compartment. He couldn’t quite suppress the sigh of relief when he saw the contents of his pack were undisturbed and accounted for. Reaching inside, he pulled out the collapsed carbon fiber composite frame, thumbed the release, and tossed it into the empty space next to Harris. 

“Wha—oh,” Ramirez stuttered. 

“My chair,” Jensen explained with a gesture to the now wheelchair-shaped ultralight frame. “General, if you don’t mind,” he added, nodding at the side rail.

“Of course,” Harris replied, springing from her chair, stepping over the back of it, and moving the rail out of the way. 

“Do you,” the medic cleared her throat, “Do you need some help, sir?” She looked a bit disconcerted by the situation, and was eyeing the chair like it might bite her. 

“No thanks,” Jensen answered, barely refraining from adding a ‘kid’ to the end of the comment. “I got this,” he added as he flipped the blankets off his legs, and double-checked to make sure he didn’t have any leads, tubes, or other pesky medical attachments to get caught during the transfer. Satisfied, he hit the control to lower the bed and smoothly transferred himself to the chair. As Jensen lifted his legs to position his feet on the supports, he looked up.

Ramirez looked thoroughly baffled and slightly scared. Her face also had a flush of embarrassment that suggested she either thought she was intruding on a private moment or was getting the worst case of TMI of her life. 

Jensen was going to snap off a remark about open-mindedness and her apparent lack thereof, when a less-bigoted explanation occurred to him, and he wanted to kick himself (metaphorically speaking) for what he’d almost said. “Let me guess, General Padalecki did your show-and-tell.”

Ramirez’s eyes grew comically wide, and she looked to Harris in desperation.

“He means your Physiological Awareness and Reality of Threat Training,” she deadpanned. 

“O—oh,” the medic replied as if hearing the first thing to make sense since she entered the room. “Yes, yes sir. Gen. Padalecki participated in my class’s PARTT.” He smiled, but it looked shaky.

“Makes perfect sense then,” Jensen said in an attempt to reassure the poor medic, who was now visibly sweating. “Danni, you’re right. We do need to both participate, and I do need to include the chair. Obviously there are some... holes in the presentation.”

Harris just swatted Jensen in the arm, and turned back to the medic. “Lead the way.”

~~~

They were able to observe the patient with Dr. Rothery, the ship’s CMO, but it soon became clear their prisoner’s condition was alarming enough that they would need to call in Katie. Having three Generals, plus Roberts, on the ship at one time was a violation of the Council charter outside of a State of Emergency, so one of those got declared in the process and everyone’s day was the worse for it.

“I know who you are,” the soldier spat. “You’re him. Their general. Their _leader_! Command warned us about you. They told us all about Jensen Ackles and what he—you—did. It’s inhuman.”

Katie reached out to check the soldier’s IV, but he flinched, jerking his hands away and rolling toward the far side of the bed. “I’m not going to hurt y—”

“I know who you are too! You’re that traitorous bitch who _wanted_ to be like them. You’re a sick freak!”

“Hey!” Harris shouted stepping out of the shadows.

The soldier flinched. 

“You don’t get to trespass on my ship and treat people that way!” Harris boomed, cutting off his rant. 

“Stay away from me!” he shouted as Katie tried to approach again. “Fucking inhuman freaks!”

“You know,” Jensen began, his voice low and even, earning a reprimanding glare from Harris and hesitant approval from Katie. Katie always did have a far better read on his moods than pretty much anybody else, well anyone but Misha. “Some of what they say _is_ true. I am _a_ General and a leader, but I’m not the only one. I’m just the one they fixate on. Some of them thought I was special. They wanted to use me, like ORDA’s using you. They thought they could control me. You see I didn’t want to be a soldier. I didn’t plan to go to war. I was a lawyer. I wanted to protect people’s rights, help people fight for themselves. But ORDA found out what I was, and they didn’t give me a choice.” He paused, carefully gauging the soldier’s reaction.

He was a ball of twisted emotions denial, confusion, and disbelief warring for control caught up in a jumble of memories distrusted and forgotten... amnesia half-remembered. He was terrified of Jensen, of all of them, but even more afraid of who—and what—he might be. 

_He doesn’t remember..._ Jensen realized. “Just like they didn’t give you a choice when they tried to ‘cure’ you.”

“They did!” Anguished conflict rolled off him in waves. The soldier himself didn’t know which part of Jensen’s statement he was protesting. “They did cure me! They gave me life. A future... saved me from going crazy, from betraying everything I knew and everyone I loved.”. His voice cracked as he choked on words.

Jensen could feel how strongly he believed them. How much he wanted to... needed to... How his life depended on accepting what they told him. Not questioning orders, especially when they papered over the holes and chasms in his memory, his identity. 

“They gave me back my humanity! Made me decent, worthy to live. There was no other choice. The path you took is madness. I will not let you lead me into inhumanity!” he screamed, eyes wide with near-religious zeal and fervor.

There it was again, that word. “ORDA didn’t give you a choice. They forced their choice on you. They devalued you, debased you, lied to you, and tried to erase your identity. They stole your past and want to dictate your future.”

“No!” the soldier insisted, shaking his head adamantly. “You’re inhu—”

“You keep saying I’m inhuman like that’s something terrible,” Jensen interjected. “But why would I be anything else when I’m _not_?”

Jensen caught the soldier’s gaze and held it. 

“I’m not human, Daniel,” he said, as the soldier’s name leapt free from the jumble of thoughts and into Jensen’s mind. “I’m _not_ human. Never have been... and neither are you.”

“You—you’re—you’re sick, crazy... Crazier than they said. You refused the treatment and your brain... your mind is all messed up. How could you do that? Betray your own people? Kidnap people—children—your own niece and nephew—and took them where they can’t be treated, can’t be cured. You disgust me!” The soldier spat, rather ineffectively, spittle and drool landing on his hospital gown. 

“No, your government kidnapped my niece and nephew, threatened and blackmailed their parents, and I managed to rescue them. I didn’t avoid a cure. I fought to retain my identity! I am who and what I have always been, and that was never human.” Jensen couldn’t help but give a bitter chuckle.

Eventually the soldier wore himself out, and Dr. Rothery ordered him sedated, then excused herself and Katie for a hush-hush private chat.

~~~

Jensen wheeled himself alongside the bed, looking down at the now-peaceful-looking man it held.

“Danni said he leveled a plasma rifle at your chest, with intent.” Only the sound of Katie’s words growing closer gave away her approach. Her steps were, as always, silent, inaudible even in the echo-friendly environment of sickbay. 

Katie’s silence unnerved Jensen at times. He saw the way the kids and new recruits in the ADF looked at her. Legendary General… genius… savior… the silent thing just served to make her more badass. Most of them, even the ones who were from Earth, who’d been ORDA officers themselves, didn’t get the _why_ behind it. 

Jensen did.

Too many years spent as a human in ORDA, always needing to be silent, go unnoticed, eventually sneaking around under the Generals’ noses. She’d learned to be stealthy and then transformed it into an art, elevated to a level rarely—if ever—before seen. 

The silence served Katie well. But it still bothered Jensen, knowing its origin. 

_He could still close his eyes and find himself back in that cell deep below the University. Dirty grey cinderblock staring back at him and Misha on the wrong side of the door, accusations hanging in the air between them twisting Jensen up inside. And it all muddled up by their survival of an impossible accident. What if they had left five minutes earlier? Or thirty seconds? What if there had been no drunk driver? Or what if they had just crashed and died? What then?_

“Then Earth would be gone. Misha would still be gone. And you’d be gone too. And you never would have known who you are,” Katie spoke softly, gently from over his shoulder. 

In his reverie she had crossed the room and closed the distance between them. 

“Don’t tell me you don’t wonder sometimes,” Jensen projected as he spoke his words so quiet he wasn’t sure they were audible.

Katie’s hand, warm and alive, and so… _human_ rested at the junction of his neck and shoulder, squeezing gently. _You know I do._ She let the silence hang, interrupted only by the distant whir of the life support system and the sub-audible rumble of the hyperdrive and punctuated by the rhythmic beeping of their patient’s monitors. “He tried to kill you.”

“He didn’t,” Jensen said aloud. The words felt heavy, threatening to catch in his throat as they left.

“He pulled the trigger. It would have been a horrible way to die.”

“I opened an aperture,” Jensen countered.

But Katie didn’t seem to be listening. “It would have burned a whole in your chest, destroyed your lungs, charred bone, crippled your heart, melted your spine…”

“And I wouldn’t have felt a thing,” Jensen pointed out. “Besides, Misha did just fine with an artificial lung.”

Katie’s grip turned vise-like, her fingers digging in, hard enough to bruise. “You would have been conscious while you choked on your own blood, felt your heart not beating. Procogitol would have surged in your system and every nerve ending not yet burned away would have flared—you would feel your body burning for a split second before you died. And you would have died.” She leaned down to look at him. “Do you know how low your blood sugar was?”

Jensen was pretty sure the answer was probably worse than he had imagined, and Katie wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to guess.

“Thirty-eight. That’s what Dr.__ estimated it was _before_ you opened the wormhole. It bottomed out at twenty-nine while they were stabilizing you, but then you wouldn’t remember that seeing as you were seizing at the time.”

“I didn’t—” Jensen protested.

“You don’t _remember_ Jensen. Goddamnit! I have warned you time and time again. Your unique body chemistry puts you at much greater risk for hypoglycemia than the average Naiian. And that’s without pushing yourself past any conceivable limits.”

“I survived __ on a class __,” Jensen said defensively, bragging despite himself. It _was_ pretty cool in retrospect. Even if the process had been surreal and terrifying and there had been a few moments there where he wasn’t entirely sure he was going to make it out alive.

“I don’t fucking care if you opened a fucking aperture to a wormhole back through time and stepped out at the moment of the Big Bang. That doesn’t matter if you get yourself killed. And you may not realize this, but we _need_ you.” She pulled back on his shoulder, spinning his chair. “ _I_ need you. And I need to get called up, told how close you came to dying and then get my ass dragged halfway across the galaxy for some _other_ problem.”

“I’m sorry, would you like me to make sure my getting nearly killed is the highlight of your trip,” he quipped with a half-hearted smile.

“You could have had brain damage.”

“I’m sorry,” he said at last, leaning into her hand.

Katie’s face melted.

“But that’s not _his_ fault,” Jensen added.

Katie scowled. “He’s the one who was chasing you. He’s the one who pulled the trigger.”

“On ORDA’s orders. Because ORDA brainwashed him. He wasn’t even the officer in charge. He didn’t have a choice in this.”

“So you just forgive him, like that?” Katie asked, skeptically.

“Blame the masters, not the soldiers,” Jensen murmured, wheeling himself back around to look at the young man’s face, smooth and placid in sleep. “He’s one of us.”

“Hmmm…” Katie murmured, seeming to agree. “But interestingly he wasn’t _always_ one of us,” she added.

Whirling around, Jensen stammered, “W–what?”

“Oh he was a Naiian, alright, and they ‘cured’ him and now he’s almost 100% Naiian again, but… he wasn’t a born Naiian,” she explained. 

“So, what, you’re saying—” but Jensen just drew a blank. He had assumed. His conversations with Harris and Dr. Rothery had all suggested this might be something happening to born Naiians as their natural genetic structure reasserted itself. But… but…

“It’s actually not as complicated as you’re thinking,” Katie clarified. “It’s more or less what you had figured out, only apparently their torture doesn’t work on anyone long term. Once a Naiian, always a Naiian—

The phrasing made Jensen smile.

“—And I swear to god Jensen, if you even think about Narnia or dragging C.S. Lewis into this—”

“I’m not, I’m not,” he protested holding up his hands in protest even though that’s exactly what he’d been thinking. “I hate C.S. Lewis,” he added (which was true, from a philosophical, metaphysical standpoint, but completely irrelevant when it came to getting lines from the damn books stuck in his head. “If it makes you feel better, you can pretend I was thinking ‘once a Marine, always a Marine,’” he offered.

Katie just narrowed her eyes and glared at him more.

 _Not helping…_ Jensen’s mind supplied, although the sing-song tone sounded like Katie’s voice, it was his own mind, his own imagination, and not something she was saying to him. When seconds ticked by and Katie still hadn’t spoken, Jensen broke down and voiced what he was thinking. “How—how is that possible?” he stammered. Then thinking twice and realizing there was a fairly disingenuous way to take his words he continued. “I’m not trying to suggest—I mean… fuck! Damn it! Why is this so damn hard? Look. I can barely conceive of a way this could happen to someone like me… someone who was born this way. I don’t understand how it could work for all of us, but don’t think for a second I regret learning that it does. I’m relieved. I’ve been so… worried… And not for the reasons people might think. It’s not that I’m scared people who weren’t always Naiian will go back to being human and turn against—”

“Jensen.” Katie’s voice broke through his stammering.

“Wha?” he started.

“Breathe,” she commanded, squeezing his shoulder.

Only then did Jensen realize how badly he was shaking fingertips rattling against the arms of his wheelchair. He wasn’t breathing. Not really. He’d been talking and talking and—

“Come on, breathe with me. Inhale—” Katie sucked in a loud breath and held it, crouching so her eyes were level with Jensen’s and looking him in the eye. “—and exhale,” she continued. “You can do it, inhale—” She took his hand between hers, “and exhale. Inhale—”

Something in her eyes, the tone of her voice, pulled Jensen back to that time on Earth deep underground in the heart of the Licinian weapon when he was dying, fading fast, and she’d been there. She’d forced him to live. Pulled him out. He forced his lungs to work. 

Katie’s relief was palpable, a warm, radiant burst awash with relief that seemed to flow through Jensen with his next breath. “That’s it,” she murmured, “just keep going.” 

When the tingling sensation in Jensen’s fingers had subsided and the sparks of light he hadn’t even noticed had faded from his vision, Katie spoke again.

“This is me you’re talking to. I know you’re out there, isolated, a lot of the time, but I’m still me, and you’re still you, and I know you, and I know your mind like it was my own. I am _never_ going to accuse you of any bullshit racist thinking. You’re the one who broke protocol and took me to the nanolumes that converted me. You gave me the information. You let me make the choice. I _know_ you. So shut off that stupid voice in your head that keeps listening to whatever constituency has been throwing this bullshit at you. Trust me when I say I’m relieved for the same reasons you are. If they could attack us and some of us would eventually recover but not all… it would be bad, painful, divisive, terrifying. I don’t want to go there any more than you do. There is nothing more terrifying to me than having my identity ripped away, altered without my will.”

“I’m sorry,” Jensen offered, his throat dry, cracking.

“Shut up,” she said gently, with a firmer squeeze of his hand. “You wanted to know how? Well I’ll tell you. You see for all ORDA might like to differentiate us, say natural born Naiians are different than Naiians that develop through nanolume exposure, classify some of us as having more ‘Marker-typical characteristics’ than others, that’s all a load of bullshit. On a genetic level? When it comes down to our DNA and how we differ from humans, we’re all the same. Sure, like any species, we have genetic variation and diversity, but we’re all still _Naiian_. In the same way you can tell chimpanzee DNA from human DNA or human from Licinian, you can tell human from Naiian. Nanolumes rewrite human DNA. They don’t add something that can be taken away; they morph our genetic identity. And they do it permanently and flawlessly. So there’s no difference between you—a Naiian child of two Naiians—or Misha—natural born Naiian who was exposed to nanolumes—or me—a human converted by nanolumes. We’re all different just like all humans are different. But just like they’re all human, we’re all Naiian. It’s not something that can be taken away or undone.”

 _Blink._ Jensen looked at Katie. _Blink._ Took in his own legs, paralyzed, but only for the moment. _Blink._ Stared at the soldier in the hospital bed.

“So what has their… ‘cure’—” he and Katie both shuddered at the mention, “been doing to us?”

“It’s another mutagentic retrovirus. Kind of like what the Nanolumes do, but much, much more crude. More virology, less biomechanical engineering. It takes Naiian DNA and mutates it and rewrites it to human.”

“So how is that not—” he started.

“Because none of us have human DNA. Sure, Naiians and humans have a lot of genes in common, but it’s not like the virus is stripping out chunks that make us Naiian and leaving a human behind. For all their trying, ORDA isn’t Carson Beckett, this isn’t Stargate, and we’re not a bunch of Michael Kenmore’s running around.” Katie glanced at the ceiling. “Well in a way we _are_ , but not like that. Ugh, I am kicking myself, bad analogy, forget I said anything,” she said hastily as she shook her head, suppressing a full body shudder.

Jensen was laughing silently now, despite himself. Leave it to Katie to always know how to diffuse the situation for him, intentional or not, if she was trying to get him to relax, well, mission accomplished.

“What I’m trying to say is the virus ORDA is using it rewrites our DNA to be human, but even for those of us who were once human, it’s not a reset button because there _is_ no reset button. If you take a sample of my DNA, you couldn’t tell what it looked like when I was human. If you had a sample of my human DNA, and compared it to my Naiian DNA, you could figure out they’re both me, but that’s it. There’s nothing in me or Jared or anyone else and nothing in any born Naiian that says ‘here’s the human part of this individual.’ So the virus is writing new DNA; it’s creating new people, or new versions of people at least.”

“So if someone infected you now, you wouldn’t become the human you were before,” Jensen said at last. 

“Yeah, you’re getting it,” she said with another squeeze. _Although if you would just frakking relax already, I could show you what’s going on._

“Words, Katie, we need to be able to explain this to everyone, Naiian and human alike.”

“Fair enough,” she shrugged. “So…” she let out a long sigh. “ORDA’s going around making human facsimilies. Their retrovirus is really good at rewriting Naiian DNA, but it ignores everything _but_ DNA.”

“And that helps us somehow?” Jensen asked.

Nodding, Katie answered, “Polycogiferase.” 

Jensen blinked, expression blank. “Not ringing any bells.”

“PCGF?” 

Recognition dawned.  
Katie continued, “Normally it acts as a sort of protein receptor. It binds with a variety of other proteins to synthesize procogitol, T. alpha, T. beta, and several of the pheromones that help us to locate and identify each other.”

“Normally?” Jensen queried, one eyebrow inching higher.

“Yeah, normally.” Katie smiled. “Thing is it looks like this innocent protein receptor, but it also acts like a kind of call-and-response.”

Brow furrowing again, Jensen just stared at Katie.

“Dump a bunch of PCGF in a cell without any Naiian neurotransmitters or pheromones, without any of the other proteins that make up those neurotransmitters, and PCGF goes haywire. It’s not just _building_ or assembling other substances. When it doesn’t find the substances it expects, for lack of a better term, it starts replicating like crazy and then it mutates. Over time, it builds up in the cells and begins acting kind of like a form of mRNA, only instead of directing protein synthesis, it hijacks cell replication and starts rewriting DNA to the, um previous specifications.”

“So it undoes the damage… the virus fails and we revert back to our previous state?” Jensen asked. “It’s not making us yet another entity with slightly different DNA?”

“No, given enough time it reverses the damage. I haven’t had enough time to work out the entirety of the _how_ … whether there’s enough information in the PCGF itself or in combination with the viral RNA and the resulting human DNA to reconstruct the original DNA sequence or if PCGF is somehow copying DNA from germ cells—”

At that Jensen’s head snapped up. “The virus ORDA’s using isn’t endogenous? It affects only somatic cells.” 

“Yeah,” Katie said with a little flare of ire. “Not sure if we just got lucky there. If maybe whatever Licinians they had helping them sold them out, or if they were just rushing—”

“Could be intentional,” Jensen said.

It was Katie’s turn to quirk an eyebrow at him.

“Think about it, if they were using an endogenous retrovirus, do you think they’d actually trust it? No, they’d be terrified some former Naiian would reproduce only to have the virus miss some solitary sperm or egg and voila, they’ve got a new generation of Naiians’ on their hands and don’t know anything about it. I mean after all, it only takes one of us and every single offspring…” Jensen trailed off, realization dawning. “PGCF… it’s why the child of a Naiian and a human is always a pure-blooded Naiian, and not some sort of hybrid.”

Katie nodded.

“Damn. I don’t know whether to thank our Licinian ancestors or be creeped out by them. That’s just…”

“Creepy?” Katie offered.

“I was gonna say ‘paranoid,’ but creepy works,” Jensen chuckled. “Getting back to the point, I wouldn’t be surprised if ORDA set up the virus that way so they would have an excuse to monitor all Naiian reproduction… maybe even treat all kids prophylactically. Hell eventually they won’t stop at Naiian kids, they’ll do it to _all_ kids, humans too.” He shuddered. “Jesus! Do you think they’d rewrite the DNA of everyone on the planet just to wipe us out?”

“Maybe?” she hedged uncertainly, then, “Probably.” It sounded more confident. “I’m not entirely sure what the retrovirus would do to human DNA. Part of its infective vector depends on distinctly Naiian traits.” She shrugged. “Might not do anything.”

“To them.” Jensen said. He shuddered, then his expression fell. “Does this mean we’re some kind of super-infective virus… a plague spreading across humanity? I mean our genetics are so aggressive even mutagenic gene therapy doesn’t—”

“The same retrovirus combined with a drug to neutralize or destroy PCGF already in the body would be successful. For that matter, one could design a biomechanical delivery vessel like nanolumes, but to make humans. PGCF does have some unique qualities, but it’s really a survival mechanism, not a weapon.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s proof that we _are_ a separate species. Not just a subspecies. A separate and distinct species. Reproductively incompatible. Without it, any children we with humans would be sterile.”

“Like mules,” Jensen realized.

“Great example,” Katie agreed. “But presence of PGCF in hybrid embryonic development essentially takes the compatible elements of human DNA and fills in the blanks, combining the genetic material of both parents, and combining it into a reproductively functional Naiian child. Without it we would have never survived. There weren’t enough altered by Nanolumes, even with our strong imperative to seek out other Naiians there was too much distance, especially in the early years. It’s possible a handful of Naiians would have existed at the time the Licinians returned to complete their attack—”

“But we wouldn’t have been organized, trained. We wouldn’t have known how to use our abilities to fight the Licinians,” Jensen finished.

“Exactly. More than that, while PGCF ensures hybrid offspring are transformed into full-blooded, fully reproductively capable Naiians, it doesn’t infect others. In time, a long, long time, we could have eventually grown to make up a large part of the population on Earth. And it’s true that if on Aurora humans never reproduce with other humans we will likely eventually wind up with a purely Naiian population. But we don’t infect anyone and we don’t prevent humans from reproducing with other humans. Frankly, I think, in addition to helping our population grow to sustainable numbers, I think it serves a far more… compassionate purpose. Think about it.”

Jensen was thinking. He couldn’t see where Katie was going until… “Of course… The pheromone imperative can be really strong. Add to that the possibility of shared mental space, full telepathic bonding. If you Naiians couldn’t reproduce with human partners, if we hadn’t died out, it would have driven us to seek out other Naiians, breaking up marriages, leaving spouses… Whereas PGCF helps mitigate that imperative enabling couples to stay together and expand the gene pool.” 

“Don’t give me that look,” Katie said, scowling back at Jensen.

“What look?” 

“The disapproving glare you’ve got going on. The one that says, ‘oh how I hate my genes for making me doubt my love is true and now making me wonder if my biology is going to secretly hijack me, make me straight, and force me to reproduce,’” Katie scolded.

“Oh, that look,” Jensen said with an understanding nod. “I wasn’t aware it was actually showing.”

“You’re not as subtle as you think. Disapprove all you want. I’ve just figured out a particular aspect of Naiian evolutionary biology that’s eluded us for years, and all you can grumble and curse the rogue Licinian agents who coded our ancestors’ DNA because you think they’re reaching through time trying to make everyone straight. Open your eyes, take a look around, if that was really their goal, they failed spectacularly. Naiians have as diverse a range of sexuality and gender expression as any other species we’ve encountered and on the whole, we have far fewer taboos and more thoroughly embrace our diversity.” She leveled a glare at him that had Jensen’s ears turning pink. He was about to open his mouth to apologize when her expression softened and drifted. 

He knew that look. “You found something else. You’ve been—this was staged to loosen me up. Whatever you’re about to tell me that’s the real blow,” Jensen realized aloud, bracing himself as his hands dropped to the wheel guards and squeezed. 

“Jensen, if what we’re seeing is true, there’s every reason to believe if Misha somehow _did_ survive and ORDA treated him… he could be recovering his memories. But, there’s no way to know for sure what he would remember or when.”

“So he could be programmed to kill me, or he could be… him?” Jensen asked, his voice sounding small and lost to his own ears.

Katie just gave him a sad nod.

At that moment a crewman burst through the doors. “General Cassidy, General Ackles,” the crewman said, hastily saluting.

“Oh god, what now?” Jensen asked.

“We just received a communique, from _Earth_.”

“Is it Colonel Hodge?” Katie asked.

The crewman was nodding. “He’s made contact with the same Licinian sect he trained with. They’ve got people undercover, and they’re playing courier. It’s urgent. You both need to come now.”

Katie shot Jensen a warning look as he rolled his chair back. “Don’t think this means you’re going to get your rehab time cut short,” she scolded.

Jensen nodded, but they both knew that wasn’t true. They’d do whatever necessary to make sure Jensen was on his feet and able to face the battle ahead.


	9. The Fifth Estate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains graphic sexual content with extremely dubious consent in the section entitled "Early August 2015—Virginia, Earth." Should you wish to avoid potentially triggering content, please feel free to skip that section and move to the next bolded heading.

**August 2015—Virginia, Earth**

Misha knew his luck would run out at some point. He’d been lucky that the only people who had gone beyond a passing suspicion of his actual memory so far were Agam and Tyler, two Naiians with their own motivations to keep his secret. 

Of course his luck did run out, and at a time and in a place that almost cost him everything. 

Misha had been called to Virginia ostensibly for a confidential briefing with ORDA brass. As a result, he could justify taking Tyler and leaving the rest of his team behind. 

In reality it was a meeting arranged by Agam in an attempt to read Misha in on some of the latest developments in Naiian-kind. _A Naiian agent, undercover with ORDA, someone who came back from offworld, who would have believed it possible?_

Agam also warned them about Bellman’s growing suspicions that all was not quite right in the program. Apparently Hanniger was mum on the issue as she’d become distracted with a new… project. Agam scrunched up her nose at the concept, but wouldn’t tell Misha or Tyler what it was.

After setting up a meeting with Jensen in Texas in a week’s time, Misha and Tyler left. And then everything went to hell.

“Wha—what?” Misha asked, panting, as the world swam around him. This didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. _Where am I? What’s happening?_

“Ahahahahahahhahaha!” someone cackled behind him. He recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it. Familiar too was the clack-clacking of heels on concrete, but he still couldn’t remember to whom that sound belonged. Nor could he place the cavernous echo around him, the flashes of fluorescent light and plain concrete that pulsed before his eyes in time with the beating of his heart. 

“Wha—” he tried again, but the word got stuck in his throat, his mouth too dry, his breathing too labored to force the rest of the world out. The world was underwater, the walls swimming around him, and he felt cold, gritty concrete under his fingers, something rough smacking into his knees. He was dizzy, and he couldn’t think. His heart felt fluttery in his chest, and his stomach felt hollow, twisted. He was… he was…

“Oh this is hilarious. I wish I had a camera handy to preserve this forever. Even if I never showed another soul the shot, I would have the _best_ laugh!” a woman’s voice gloated. “Ahahahaaah,” she chuckled again, breaking off into a sigh. “Oh _Misha_ , you’ve managed to recover so much. Pieced together details and memories you really shouldn’t have been able to reconstruct. But then, you should have stayed human too, and that clearly didn’t work out, did it?” 

Misha thought he heard a faint electronic whirring, again, a familiar sound, but one he was hopeless to place.

“No,” the woman continued with more certainty, her heels clacking again. 

Misha realized she must be coming closer.

“I’d thought maybe you just stolen some _T. synth_ when you picked up that WMD, but not according to these readings. Somehow your body is actually _producing_ Marker neurotransmitters. Oh, I’m sorry, or do you want to be called a _Naiian_. Hah! I told Gina she was an idiot. We never should have rushed the project. And here we are, almost three years later, and sure enough, there’s a flaw. A big fucking flaw. Well. This is just great. Lucky for me, looks like you forgot some of the key _side effects_ of wormhole generation. Hmm!”

Misha panted and tried to focus. _WMD_ , what was that? He knew the acronym stood for Weapon of Mass Destruction, but it had another meaning, something important to him once upon a time, but that term had been wrong, and this… Wait, what was she talking about, side effects?

“It’s hypoglycemia, sweetheart.” 

Misha flinched, losing his balance, faceplanting on the concrete as his elbows buckled. The words had been spoken directly in his ear. He couldn’t see properly or think, but she was right there. Behind him. She’d been bending over him; he’d felt the hot mist of her breath spraying against his ear. _Dr. Sheppard_ , he shuddered when he realized who it was, numb and tingling elbows and knees scrabbling against the ground as he tried to crawl away from her.

“Ohaha! You really are adorable. Getting away from me isn’t going to help. You’re terribly out of practice you see, so you burned yourself out a lot faster than you would have expected, even if you knew to expect this. And now your blood sugar is dangerously low. I know you can feel it. The disorientation… You’re slipping under, and if you go, _whoops_ , it’s game over for you. You’ll slip right into a coma without intervention in the next minute or two.” Dr. Sheppard’s heels clicked again; now she seemed to be circling Misha. “I could treat you, or I could let you die like this. Decisions, decisions. Normally, I would be all for letting your own arrogant stupidity be your undoing. But, see, I brought this—”

Something small and cylindrical was thrust in Misha’s face. He was pretty sure he knew what it was, or what it should be, but he couldn’t focus long enough to see. The lights seemed dimmer. They weren’t even flickering now. Had the room gotten… smaller?

“—to treat you, just in case… in case there was a better way, and let me tell you, based on these readings, there’s a much, much better way.”

Suddenly Dr. Sheppard’s face filled Misha’s entire field of vision. He had the feeling she was right in front of him, close enough to touch, but he couldn’t blink or move away or flinch.

“You see, your latest scan tells me your body is starting to produce T. alpha and procogitol. You may not remember what that means, but I sure do. You see, according to your dear Dr. Cassidy’s research, the research she so painstakingly tried to hide from us, those two neurotransmitters, in the concentrations I am seeing, are part of what she calls a ‘symbiote bond.” I swear, it does sound like something out of Star Trek! But I digress. The _symbiote_ bond is something you form with a Licinian-made WMD, what your kind calls a _symbiote_. I know your dear Dr. Cassidy thinks you both get something amazing from the bond, but let’s be honest,” her fingers gripped Misha’s jaw very hard, causing him to wince and whimper with pain, “it’s mostly just a parasite. You bond with the symbiote and it will open wormholes with you, but then it connects with you on such a basic level that you literally cannot live without it. Your body starts producing excess pheromones, hormones, and neurotransmitters if you’re separated. You _search_ for it…” 

Misha flinched and swallowed hard against the revulsion he felt inside as one long, cold finger with a very sharp nail, carved a meandering path down his cheek.

“You search for it until your body breaks down under the brunt of the hormones you’re producing, and you _die_.” He laughed again. “You know, in a way, I am very happy you did this. We didn’t know when we first recovered you, if the connection to your symbiote would break. We thought when you completed the transition, it wouldn’t matter. You’d be human, and any connection to the old symbiote would be erased. As far as I can tell, you still haven’t come in contact with your old symbiote, and yet… you do have a connection to it. Your body is searching, and you are never, ever, ever going to find it, and that means you are going to die. A slow, agonizing painful death.”

He was waving the cylinder in front of him, and Misha did his best to reach out and grab it. Managing to push himself up on his left elbow, he reached out with his right hand, fingers trying to close around the promised drug… but they closed on air, as Dr. Sheppard tugged the cylinder away at the last minute. Misha could feel himself losing his balance, but it was too much, too hard, to do anything about it.

“None of that; it’s my decision to make. My decision how much I want your pathetic little excuse for a life, your stubborn, obnoxious superiority complex-ridden self to suffer before I finally snuff you out.”

He was circling again, but Misha couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, almost couldn’t feel anything in the world around him, and he certainly couldn’t get up, try again.

“You know what?”

 _Bang_! The retort of a gunshot echoed through the mostly empty concrete structure, making everything swim. It was too close, too close, and Misha feebly curled into a ball on his left side. There was a quick scraping sound, like metal over concrete, and then the world rushed back in.

“Misha? Misha? No, no, no, no, no. Shit! Oh I so am not equipped to deal with this, fuck!” Another voice was speaking, it too was familiar, but Misha couldn’t remember why. “Pry it from his cold, dead hands, if I have to. Guess I had to.” Misha heard a rustling sound. “Fuck, okay. Here goes nothing.” 

Misha felt his shirt lifted above his hipbone, the cool press of plastic and metal to his skin, breaking through the haze of unconsciousness, followed by a hiss and pressure and _pain_ that followed. _Oh god!_ Only then, finally, the haze in his brain began to clear. He remembered. It was…

“Glucagon,” someone—Tyler—said from nearby. “If you’re like most people you’ll probably—”

But Misha was already retching. His stomach turned itself inside out as he struggled to breathe. It felt _awful._

“Yeah, sorry, I was going to say you’d probably puke, but I couldn’t think of a nicer way to put it,” Tyler said. His voice felt warm and safe and close. 

“Glucagon?” Misha managed at last, the word feeling alien on his tongue. He should know that word, shouldn’t he? It wasn’t new, but he couldn’t seem to piece together what it meant.

“Yeah, so you don’t drop dead from the blood sugar crash. Lucky for you, I paid attention in my basic field ops training. And now you’re reaping the benefit.”

“What was he—” Misha started to say, but then it all rushed back to him—the symbiotes, the connection, Jensen almost dying after ORDA took the symbiotes away, the horrible _yearning_ desperation, tearing him up inside. The very real and certain truth of Dr. Shepperd’s not-so-idle threat. He could feel it, the part of him that was seeking, desperate to find the part that would make him complete. It was just a gentle ache, a subtle nudge at the moment. How long would he have before it became worse? Exhaustion, pain, tremors, cognitive issues… How long until his body started to sacrifice itself, destroy itself in search what had been taken? He needed to get to his symbiote or he would die. “Oh fuck, we have to get my symbiote!” he said out loud. 

It was more of a moan, but Tyler must have understood him, either verbally or telepathically because Misha’s words were followed by Tyler answering, “Now _that_ sounds like a plan!” 

Misha just grunted, he didn’t have enough control to do much of anything else. Fine tremors wracked his arms and legs and his entire body felt tingly. He should be feeling better by now, shouldn’t he?

“Can I help you up?” Tyler asked, dropping to his knees in front of Misha as he set his gun down on the concrete between them. 

Misha glanced at the gun and tried to glance over his shoulder to see what was happening with Dr. Hanniger, but utterly failed when he lost his balance. He wound up landing hard on his shoulder, narrowly avoiding the pile of puke. “It’s not…” The tremors in his hands were getting worse, his feet were cramping, and his torso was shaking. In a distant part of his mind he realized he might be having some type of seizure, but was that possible for him to be aware of it? And why, what was causing it?

“Misha?” Tyler asked nervously. He was no longer trying to help Misha up.

Something about this wasn’t _quite_ right. He twitched, and his forearm bumped into something… Something round and hard and… “This looks more like an epi-pen?” Misha managed.

Tyler reached out and picked up the piece of plastic as if it might bite. “This is a new design, it’s stabilized using some alien tech and something a scientist developed—I think your old friend. It’s supposed to be easier to use, nothing to measure, no actual needle…”

“Like an epi-pen,” Misha repeated.

“Y—yeah,” Tyler replied.

“Do you know if it was tested for Naiian physiology?” Misha asked, knowing the answer anyway.

“Not that I know of,” Tyler said with a hurt, but not defensive, edge.

“And you got this from Dr. Shepperd?” Misha started. “O—oh owwwww,” he broke off, his words crumbling into moans.

“Yeah,” Tyler replied with more conviction. “Although I am now seeing that was a really, really bad idea.”

“Well save that,” Misha nodded towards the cylinder, “and take a sample of my blood—we’re going to need to test it, see what’s in that, what it’s doing to me.”

“Are you crazy; you’re having a seizure,” Tyler replied, his voice rising with alarm. He started working with something else near Misha, Misha couldn’t see what; it was out of his limited range of vision. 

“Take the sample. We need to know what this did to me, what it could do to others. That means we need a sample before you try to treat me,” Misha added.

“But Colonel, you’re convulsing and going into shock. Your blood sugar is—”

“Just… do…it,” Misha gritted out.

“Okay, okay,” Tyler mumbled as he took the sample. “We’re going to have to find a laboratory and scientist who can interpret this without learning too much. Okay, now what. Your blood sugar is at… _Jesus!_ “ he swore. “Blood glucose is at 53 and dropping. How are you even still conscious?”

“Not—not sure,” Misha panted. “Just find me a real glucagon shot, please,” he asked almost begging.

Tyler seemed to disappear again, but Misha knew it was only the drug and low blood sugar affecting him. He couldn’t see much, but that was nothing to worry about, he knew that. Misha wasn’t exactly tracking well, so how could he expect to see where Tyler moved. He was back, only a minute later, and clutching a small kit. “I am so lucky I didn’t throw this out after the new kits came in,” Tyler mumbled. 

Moments later, Misha felt the more familiar pinch and push of the hypodermic needle. Unfortunately for him, the second batch of glucagon came with more puking. When Misha had finished retching onto the concrete, he breathed a little easier. There were still spasms and shakes throughout his body, but he thought they were decreasing. His mind was definitely clearing, all that fog finally giving way to clear-headed thought, and he realized how muddled his thinking had been from the start. Somewhere in there, after maybe the third wormhole, hypoglycemia had started to kick in, and his behavior had essentially fallen apart.

“Better?” Tyler asked, expectantly, his face looming into view before Misha’s half-slit eyes. 

“Much,” Misha agreed. “H—help me up.” He reached out for Tyler. On the third try, their hands clasped and Tyler pulled him to a seated position.

“I wonder if there are any—if I poisoned you, if this—”

“Relax,” Misha said with more confidence and conviction than he felt. “You didn’t poison me, not irreparably, and you had no reason to suspect, no reason to do anything differently. You heard Dr. Sheppard, he wasn’t trying to kill me, not yet. And he and Dr. Hannigar need my skills, the skills I’m not supposed to have. If he wasn’t trying to kill me, then I’m betting it doesn’t have any really horrible long-term side effects, but we can find out what it does and go from there.”

“I’m still sorry,” Tyler offered.

“I know,” Misha whispered. “Now, can you help me up? Unless we’re about to be attacked?” He stole a glance over his shoulder again, but succeeded only in giving himself a headache. He blinked, blinked again, remembering, at last, the report of the gunshot. “You killed Dr. Shepperd?”

“Yes, I killed Dr. Sheppard, what else was I supposed to do? Did you notice he was planning to torture you and then murder you, but not before using you to try to kill and destroy all of our people?”

“Yes, yes I did notice,” Misha confirmed. “Thank you. I just wanted to make sure he was really dead.”

“He is,” Tyler said, looking over their shoulders at Dr. Sheppard’s body. “I kicked his gun away, and he hasn’t moved since I pulled the trigger.”

“Good,” Misha murmured. “There’s just the little problem of how we’re going to maintain our cover now that he’s dead.”

“Misha, seriously,” Tyler protested, dropping all pretense of rank. “He had you at gunpoint. He was going to inject you with this,” he held up the cylinder, “which we discovered is a really bad idea, and he was planning to use you to finally kill off everyone like us. We had no choice.” He shrugged. “Besides, no one has seen us out here. I doubt Dr. Sheppard was making this little excursion on the books. I bet he didn’t even tell Dr. Hanniger…”

Misha glanced at the body and back at Tyler, “Yeah, this isn’t really her style,” he agreed.

“So if Dr. Sheppard is missing, no one’s gonna know where to look. Of all the places they search, I don’t think this garage is going to be on the list.”

“Okay, sounds like the best we can do,” offered Misha. “I’ll just, I’ll just,” he tried standing up, but soon found himself falling over. 

Tyler swooped in and rescued him, supporting Misha’s dangling limbs as they flopped around. “Easy, don’t struggle,” he commanded. “Now let’s get out of here before more of her folks arrive or any one calls in to find out what’s going on.”

“What about your gun, the brass, the body? Is anything traceable? We need a cleaning crew,” Misha panted, struggling to regain his breath and strength. 

That had the effect of fighting Tyler who made an inappreciative grunt. “Seriously, Misha, we’re probably way more screwed if we stick around and try to clean this than if we just _go_.” Tyler paused, and Misha could hear the wheels turning in his mind. “Okay, just hang onto this pole over here,” Tyler said, leading Misha to the nearest concrete support pillar. 

Misha grabbed on, thankfully, with unsteady legs, and breathed through the onset of pain and cramping.

“Okay,” Tyler said, returning what felt like an instant later. “I policed the brass, wiped down anything that could have carried a fingerprint, and looked over the scene.” He grunted as he took on Misha’s weight transferring him away from the pillar. “Without a body or more evidence there, the picture won’t be that clear, but I think it’s safe to say, the tableau will raise a few eyebrows. Dr. Sheppard doesn’t come off in too good a light; this clearly looks like he was stalking someone, following them, threatening them with a gun. If we leave it as is, we’ve at least bought ourselves some plausible deniability. There’s no reason for ORDA to look at either of us if they’re not already suspicious for some other reason.”

“What about blood?” Misha asked around a grunt of pain.

“What do you mean? His blood? There’s no way—”

“No, dumbass, my blood, your blood, our blood—anything that could tip our hand to ORDA. Anything that might make them wonder who we are, or realize that we’ve been hiding under their collective noses,” Misha retorted. 

“Our blood isn’t there. There’s nothing for ORDA to question; just Dr. Sheppard’s blood,” Tyler reassured. “Now come on. Let’s get out of here before someone catches us.”

~~~

**August 2015—Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Earth**

Wil shoved the door closed, hard enough that it shook the battered truck cab but not so hard that it made much noise. “You’re not going to like it,” he warned again still clutching the tiny SD card he’d withdrawn from its hiding place. 

“And why is that?” Alona asked crossing her arms. 

“Because she’s hot—on their radar. She’s either someone they want to capture very, very badly... and before you say they want everyone like you very badly, they don’t spend ten million in two _weeks_ to track down most people and they definitely don’t do it quiet. I haven’t seen this kind of expenditures or efforts used for anyone else but you-know-who.” He paused, running his thumb over the tiny data receptacle letting his words sink in. After a good minute of silence, he looked up at Alona, squinting against the sun. “Which means she either knows something, or...”

“Or she’s a plant,” Alona finished, her jaw clenching in frustration.

“Or she’s a plant,” Wil echoed nodding. “And when I said she was on their radar?” He stepped closer and lowered his voice even further so Alona had to struggle to hear. “If these documents are correct, they actually had her in custody, at least for a little while.”

“How long?” 

“A day, maybe less.”

Head bobbing in acknowledgment, Alona swallowed hard around the immovable lump that had sprung up in her throat. She took a step back, nodding again as she tried to wrap her mind around the implications. “Fuck!”

“I said you wouldn’t like it,” Will offered, sounding genuinely regretful.

Alona sighed, dragging her fingers through her hair and bending forward as if she could shake loose some of the thoughts swirling in her mind. “Fuck!” she repeated. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She stomped her foot in time with her outbursts. 

“I considered not telling you, but seeing as how I’ve come to actually like you and our little arrangement, and how you’re pretty much the only chance I’ve got of finding out what happened to my wife, and how anything that fucks you over will inevitably fuck me over, and then your wife would have my balls if I didn’t give you a heads up about this, and I _like_ my balls, well.” He shrugged, “I figured telling was the lesser of two evils.”

“Thank you,” Alona said letting out another sigh as she straightened up. “I’m just trying to figure out if I’m gonna be sick,” she admitted. 

“So...” Wil started, “you want this? Or should I step on it, light it on fire, and throw its charred remains in the river?”

Alona held out her hand as if to shake Wil’s. “I’ll take it.” 

He hesitated, and for a moment, Alona thought he was going to change his mind, take Alona’s choice out of the equation, but then he reached out and grasped Alona’s hand, slipping the SD card into her grasp as he pulled her in for a back-slapping hug that was more genuine than for show. 

“You know you have to rescue her, no matter what, right?” Wil asked, speaking softly into Alona’s hair. 

“Oh I know,” she admitted, stepping back to regard Wil introspectively. “If they really are after her, I have to try to protect her. She’s been with them, so we need to know what she told them or what they might have gleaned.” She looked up. “Any chance this can wait until Nicki gets back from her scavenger hunt?”

“Her situation’s pretty… urgent. I could have her in country tomorrow, but you’ll need some place secure…”

“I’ve got that covered. Just get her here.”

~~~

**Early August 2015—Virginia, Earth**

“You know what I don’t get,” Aldis admitted sliding his arm around Alexis’ shoulders drawing her closer. 

“What?” she asked with a giggling sigh as she rolled over in his arms. Her nipples brushed across Aldis’ chest, eliciting a gasp of arousal.

His dick twitched and then outright jumped when she spread her legs running one thigh between his, the smooth skin of her thigh a tantalizing caress along the length of his rapidly filling shaft. “Aaaaah,” he moaned. 

She giggled again, the tone light and innocent, a stark contrast with what he knew she was capable of. Her face radiated pleasure. Alexis spread her legs wider, sliding up and over him until she was braced on her elbows, cunt hovering over his dick, breasts pillowed on his chest. She took a deep breath and arched her back, raising her hips about an inch and rocking forward _just so_ before sinking down again, enveloping Aldis in one long, slow, smooth slide. She giggled again, smile growing wider as he bottomed out while she ground her clit against him in a slow circle. 

There was nothing between them. No condom, no barrier. Just skin on skin. Aldis inside Alexis with endless possibilities within them. In that moment he felt so _human_ , and Alexis looked so kind, gentle, and carefree, he could almost forget. Almost imagine they were every but the young human lovers they seemed to be... Even if he was nothing near human and she was the architect of his people’s genocide. 

Aldis thrust up with his hips as she rocked down, circling her hips and making him groan. He was so lost in the sensation he startled when the question finally came.

“So what is it you’ve always wondered and just don’t get?” she asked, a little breathless. 

Aldis spluttered, causing Alexis to laugh. 

“And please don’t say it’s how to achieve multiple orgasms, because I flat out won’t believe you,” she added. 

Aldis groaned as she circled her hips again, making breathy little gasps as she drove herself closer to completion. “You—” he broke off to gasp. “You can’t possibly expect me to—aah—form coherent thoughts with you riding me.”

She paused, halfway up his shaft and squeezed with her inner muscles, hard. “I think if you’re gonna bring up shop talk in bed, you have to live with the consequences.”

His dick twitched.

“O—oh,” he moaned. “I—we weren’t doing this when I asked the question.”

“Well then,” she said between gasps, “you’ll just have to wait until we’re finished.” Her hips stilled for a moment. “I’m close; you’re close, I wanna be on my back when you come in me.” It was an order.

The voice in the back of his mind—or perhaps deep in his soul—that was thouroughly not alright and wholly unsettled with the current situation and all its implications, balked, rebelled at the demand; while the parts of his mind that were fully engaged and completely submurged in his cover identity, locked in the role, relished in the subversiveness—it spoke to his submissiveness while twisting him around with the apparent domination in the mood. Then there was the tiny piece of his mind that found vindictive pleasure in the situation. He _knew_ what Alexis was trying to do, and that part of him hoped she succeeded so he could see her reaction when she gave birth to a Naiian child— There should have been another voice, one crying out about the wrongness of it all, the lack of complete consent on both their parts, but it was silent. And Aldis didn’t have the energy to examine why... He could rationalize all he wanted, but he had little choice but to comply, the slightest deviation from who he was supposed to be could mean discovery, and that meant near-certain death, not just for him, but quite possibly for every Naiian left on Earth. So, he did as he was told and rolled them over so Alexis was on her back and he nestled snuggly between his legs.

His brief attack of conscience hadn’t gone unnoticed. 

“What do you think you’re doing? I give you an order, and you follow it!” Alexis chided, kicking him playfully with her heel as she lifted her legs, nudging his arms out of the way one by one. 

He complied and watched as she settled her legs on his shoulders in an impressive display of flexibility. “I’m not—I am sorry, ma’am,” he added formally, trying to keep his tone light. 

Alexis laughed again, the sound darker somehow, as elements of her true nature shone through. “Oh Allan, seriously, you worry too much. I’m not mad at you, but if you’re worrying what General Bellman will say when she finds out, you need to stop right now. I’m not in your direct chain of command, so she has no place in our bed. Relax!”

Aldis nodded, not daring to let out the sigh of relief he was holding inside. All it would take would be one lapse, one mistake, and it would be all over. For all of them. Aldis couldn’t afford a moral crisis, no matter how twisted his life got, he had to keep going. 

As he pondered his error, Alexis continued giving orders. “That’s good. That’s so much better... Don’t you feel better when you do as I say?” she asked. 

“Yes ma’am,” Aldis answered. 

“Good,” she approved, running her hands up Aldis’ arms and dragging her fingernails down his back. 

He could tell by the feel that she’d drawn blood, broken the skin. One more thing to worry about. Slowing his healing was not an easy task. He was just grateful she’d torn up his back while she wasn’t facing it. This way, at least she wouldn’t have visual proof of how torn up he’d been. He’d have an easier time hiding his accelerated healing this way. He let out a half-faked moan of pleasure and tried to let go of the part of his mind that was outside, thinking, too disconnected from the role he had to be.

“You like that, don’t you,” Alexis said. 

Aldis moaned.

“Of course you do,” she replied, clenching down on his dick and squeezing he knees to his neck.

It wasn’t quite enough to cut off the blood flow to his brain, and he could still breathe, but he felt woozy, light headed, his pulse hammering even harder through his veins as he struggled to maintain his rhythm. 

“That’s more like it,” she murmured, but Aldis barely heard.

The maneuver had had the desired effect. The world had narrowed down to a fine line focus, a bright point, a single goal, and all he had to do was listen to her, achieve the goal, please her, pleasure her—

She pulled him to her breast, folding herself impossibly in half, as she craned her neck up to whisper in his ear. “I’m so close,” she purred. “You feel so good. You always do exactly what I want. Now you’re going to come inside me, but not until I say.” Her voice shivered, and Aldis shivered with her. 

He started to pant, wanted to beg, but she bit his ear, sharp, bright, agonizing—until pleasure bloomed within him, too great to contain. He thrust in hard, losing his breath, spots before his eyes, and came. Long, thick streams shooting out into her, deep inside, right where she wanted him, and he was helpless to resist; unable to stop.

When the world righted itself moments later, he was still breathing hard, and she was still coming, spasms tight around his too sensitive dick, taking him to the bad side of pain, opening the door for shame to enter... but to his surprise it didn’t. He was just spent and numb and more than a little curious how this was going to blow up in his face. He had crossed a line, but when he’d crossed it and which line it was remained a mystery to him. There would be consequences for what he’d just done, for what she’d just done, quite possibly horrific consequences, but for now all there was, was the question.

He started to pull out, but a weak, scolding kick to his left shoulder stopped him.

“You stay there, until you fall out or I tell you to,” she warned teasingly, an almost sweet smile spreading across her lips. “Now what was it you ‘didn’t get’?”

Aldis looked down at her sweat-slicked, glistening breasts, and pulled together the wayward strands of his thoughts. Somehow it was easier to do when he didn’t have to see her face, couldn’t look her in the eye. “I was just wondering something about the war... about the enemy.

Alexis’ body stiffened beneath him. She didn’t move, but he could feel every ounce of relaxation, and leniency leave her in an instant. 

He expected a question or a reprimand, but when neither came, he forged ahead. “We know some of them escaped, went to a different planet. Why don’t we just follow them there? Take the fight to their doorstep rather than defending, waiting for them to attack? There aren’t that many of them compared to us, right? So if not a full frontal assault then some recon?” He waited for her to reply, but when no reply was forthcoming, he looked up and met her eyes.

She was staring back at him assessing, her gaze cold and stern. It made Aldis want to squirm and wonder what he had said wrong, if he had somehow given himself away.

“You do know they took down our tracking system before they escaped,” she said at last.

“Of course,” Aldis replied. “But from everything I’ve heard, everything I’ve, uh, gathered by reading between the lines, we more or less know where they went. And it was a planet where ORDA used to have a base, so why don’t we just go there?”

Alexis regarded him skeptically, and smiled. “Arrogance,” she said.

“We’re, what, too arrogant to look?” Aldis asked, his voice rising an octave and a half in surprise

Alexis laughed, quiet at first, then choking guffaws that had her arching her back and coughing. When she had recovered enough to breathe, she shook her head. “Oh, _we’re_ not that arrogant. Or stupid. But the old regime was. Back when the N—Markers were in charge and the generals lacked the—vision and leadership to do what needed to be done. They were arrogant. The Markers knew where Miradoma was. And they knew how to get there and back. They had no ships and no way of letting humans operate WMD technology, healthy humans,” she corrected herself. “So the Markers never told anyone else where the planet was, and the generals didn’t think it was important, and now we know where they went, but we don’t know where _there_ is.” She started laughing again, this time her body shook so hard, her legs slipped off Aldis’ shoulders, the change in angle finally freeing him from her body. She stuck out her lip, briefly looking dejected, and leveraged them into a roll, freeing her trapped leg as she did so, and stopping when they were lying roughly side by side, keeping Aldis in place with a firm hand against his chest. It was the closest thing to a position approximating equality Alexis was likely to give him.

“Can’t we ask?” Aldis blurted out.

She looked at him quizzically, her head tilted to one side. 

“Markers, former markers, I mean. There are what, tens of thousands of people you’ve treated and cured, and thousands of them were in ORDA under the old regime, so why has no one asked where it is?” Aldis clarified.

“Because,” she reached out and dragged her index finger down his lips, chin, and neck, stopping to let it rest at the hollow of his throat. “The treatment makes them forget.”

He could feel his eyebrows shoot towards his forehead. “On purpose? Isn’t this a big enough deal to maybe bend the rules for someone until we have the location?”

“Not on purpose, not anymore,” she replied, trailing her finger along his clavicle. She looked up at him and saw the question in his eyes.

“At first we tried to control their memories. We weren’t sure how hostile they would be, especially those who had been infected for a long time.”

 _Lie._ She meant born Naiians.

“After a while we took the chance, precisely for the reason you described. We found that all the Markers had a form of amnesia. The longer they’d been infected, the worse it was. They didn’t remember. No one remembered how to operate a WMD or any of the places they’d gone with it.” She looked away again. “Some of them seemed to forget their entire lives. We think those individuals may have been infected in utero or in childbirth.”

_Lie._

“We were wary of allowing those who had been infected to use the modified WMDs, especially those with long term infections, but we took the risk, and...”

“Nothing happened,” Aldis surmised. 

“Nothing. No one regained a single memory. No one had any instinctive reactions, no one remembered where Miradoma was. We’ve tried again and again, nothing works, no one remembers.”

“Were you just asking?” Aldis hedged.

The gleam in Alexis’ eyes was manic, hateful. “Of course not. What kind of a cut-rate, half-assed war do you think we’re running? We’ve interrogated, used enhanced interrogation methods, tortured, tried drugs, used drugs and machinery from other planets. They don’t know. None of them know. None of them can seem to remember. And we don’t know why.”

 _Truth._ But she suspected. He didn’t need to be able to read her mind to see it written all over her face. The question was, how strong was her suspicion and how close was she to finding out?

“So, to answer your question, we don’t know where there is because ORDA was too arrogant to write that shit down, and the treatment induces amnesia. Of course, that’s not to say having all our most dangerous patients forget the important details of their lives doesn’t come in handy.” She laughed. “Come on, if you’re really this interested, there’s something I want to show you.” She pushed him over so he flopped back on the bed, standing in one graceful movement and gliding across the room with no concern for her nakedness. Alexis Hanniger was far too secure in her sense of self, in her control to let a little thing like a lack of clothes leave her feeling exposed, this Aldis knew.

She paused by the closet to slip into a thin, silk bathrobe, tying it loosely at her waist. She grabbed Aldis’ robe off the hook beside it and tossed it at him. It landed on his stomach with a faint plop.

Aldis was still processing the implications of what she’d just told him. 

“Come on,” Alexis scolded, slapping his foot. 

He blinked the tears out of his eyes and looked up at her blearily. 

“I want you to see this. Now put on that robe, and follow me,” Alexis ordered.

“Yes ma’am,” Aldis replied, forcing his body to comply.

~~~

**August 2015—Washington, D.C., Earth**

Alona stepped into the room and closed the door allowing herself a moment to lean—not slump—against it gathering strength. Why couldn’t she have stuck Nikki with this project? But no, Nikki wasn’t due back from the latest expedition for another week. It was too risky to call her home early, especially since if this... interview... went the way she expected it would, they were going to need every last scrap of Licinian tech they could find. And this couldn’t wait until Nikki got home. 

No, Alona had made her bed and she was going to have to lie in it, no matter how ill-equipped she felt. 

“I brought lunch. Thought you might want it,” she said as she pushed off the door with her shoulder and crossed the narrow cinderblock room to take a seat across from the... witness, Rachel, potential victim. _More like a potential Trojan horse._

“I’m surprised you came for me yourself,” Rachel said, not moving her eyes from their current mark on the far wall. “You have quite a reputation, you know. Out there in the world. Among our kind. Among ORDA too. They tell stories about you. It’s all rumor and speculation, no one knows enough to guess at the truth.” At last she turned over her shoulder to look at Alona. “I’m surprised you would risk _yourself_ to deal with me in person.”

Alona opened her mouth to speak, almost answered ‘there is no one else,’ but realized a split second later the error in that course of action. She inwardly cursed herself and clamped down on the train of thought and shunted it aside, forcing blankness and disinterest through her mind, willing away the embarrassment, frustration, and guilt that threatened to spill over and project all over the place. She couldn’t afford any mistakes. “I thought you might be hungry,” she said instead. “And this conversation might be more comfortable for you if you ate something.” She held the plate out in front of her, a gesture of offering.

Rachel glanced at the tray then met Alona’s eyes, if only for a split second. “I was surprised you didn’t drug me. If you were going to come in person, panantipropenol would have projected your secrets,” she responded.

“The food’s not drugged. It’s just food,” Alona said as she crossed the room and rounded thetable setting the tray down before taking a seat. She reached down to tug the chair closer, make it more comfortable but was met only with the unyielding resistance of cold metal. _Right_. Of course one of the downsides of coming here was the chairs were bolted to the floor… on _both_ sides of the table. Leave it to ORDA not to trust their own soldiers to keep a safe distance from prisoners. Conceding a small sigh of defeat, she instead ran her hands over her legs, smoothing her suit pants. “And as for panantipropenol… Are you trying to impress me with your knowledge? Or show how much of a threat you are?”

Rachel just shrugged.

“For that matter, if you know enough to suggest it, you also know panantipropenol would put me at a disadvantage—as much as it would protect my mind from any intrusion you might want to make, it would also render you immune to my skills. Your mind would be a blank to me, unreadable.” She gave the tray a little shove, sliding it about an inch closer to Rachel. “Besides, it would be cruel, and unlike _some_ people, cruelty isn’t really my thing.”

“Guess I don’t rate having a doctor on hand,” Rachel muttered with a bitter laugh. “Don’t know if I should be relieved or worried.” She looked at the food almost mournfully then snapped her eyes up to lock on to Alona’s. “You could have dosed yourself.”

So that was how this was going to go… 

Alona tipped her head in acknowledgment. “It might have protected my mind. But there are some things I _have_ to know.”

“I thought so,” Rachel said sadly. “Not as benevolent and cuddly as you would have it seem.”

“What I do, I do because I have to. For the survival of our people.”

“ _They_ say the same thing, you know.” Rachel picked up the fork on the tray and stuck it into the salad. “Some of them actually believe it. They’re terrified of us.”

“People fear what they don’t know,” Alona answered reflexively.

“Yet they dissect us, analyze us, torture us, and still have the nerve to tell us to our faces they hope we die a long, painful death and burn in hell for all eternity,” Rachel answered.

“I’m not ORDA. We’re not—”

“Not _like_ them?” Rachel offered. “Ackles and the others used to _be_ them. You bring me to one of their facilities to interrogate me.”

“This isn’t an interrogation,” Alona retorted.

“Yes it is.”

“Yes it is,” Alona agreed, realizing she was fighting a losing game. Rachel clearly wasn’t someone who could be easily put at ease. She calmed herself, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “But that’s not _all_ this is. I really do want to help you. You’ve been threatened, in danger. I want to offer you a w—”

“A way out? Really?” Rachel put the fork down and leaned forward, dropping both elbows to the table with a painful-sounding ‘thud.’ “Even if the only ‘way out’ for me is in a body bag? Are you prepared for that reality? Because I was under the impression you were the cuddly, fluffy, do-gooder side of your dynamic duo, and you really don’t seem like the type to do your own wet work.”

Alona blanched, finding herself speechless for a moment. “You think I’d kill you?”

“I’m trying to find out if you’re prepared for the possibilities, if you’ve really thought about what will happen if you get answers to the questions we both know you’re going to ask.”

“I a—”

Rachel was shaking her head. “I don’t think you are. I mention execution, and your heart rate skyrockets. You’re practically drowning in adrenaline and procogitol and your emotional control is shot to shit. What I said disgusts you, but you’re panicking because you _have_ thought about it, and you don’t know the answer.” She picked up the fork again, this time digging into the pasta on the tray and shoveling it into her mouth.

It was true, they both knew that, but Alona also believed there were other solutions. She was not going to start emulating ORDA, and she certainly wasn’t going to kill anyone—human or Naiian—unless she absolutely had to. No matter what had gone down between Rachel and ORDA, Alona wasn’t convinced killing was the answer. “Look, let’s start over. You’re not my prisoner. If you notice, you’re not chained to the table. I am here to help you. This _used_ to be an ORDA facility, but under the old guard. They abandoned it when they started rounding up innocent people and destroying lives. We’re here because it’s secure, and it has everything we need—including medical facilities, should you need them, and no that’s _not_ at threat,” she added when Rachel flinched. “I have, as you so astutely ascertained, thought about the eventualities, the possibilities, and there are any number of reasons you might require medical attention.”

Rachel didn’t look particularly convinced, but she did keep eating, which Alona took as a good sign.

“Do you want to tell me about what happened when ORDA apprehended you?” Alona asked, when several minutes passed, and Rachel hadn’t done anything but chew and swallow.

“Do you wanna tell me what answers are going to get me killed?” Rachel shot back.

“I thought we just established I wasn’t interested in killing anyone—”

Rachel raised an eyebrow.

“—unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Alona conceded. “And as we established, this is an interrogation. I’m the one asking the questions.” She considered her next move carefully as Rachel went on eating. If she treated this like a deposition… if she was just investigating a claim, trying to establish the ground work, lay a foundation… “Let’s back up a little, why don’t you tell me how you got on ORDA’s radar in the first place? Or, maybe even how you know what you know? Start at the beginning.”

“What do you know about—” Rachel started again.

It was Alona’s turn to cock an eyebrow, halting Rachel in her tracks. 

“Fine,” Rachel sighed, evidently trying another tack. “There was a blog called Fifth Estate.”

“Heard of it,” Alona admitted. “Read it a few times. Always wondered if the writer thought he was being cute, implying new media was a separate entity, a different voice from the traditional press.” She frowned as a memory forced its way to the surface of her mind, insistent, refusing to be ignored, demanding to be voiced. “Nicki said that wasn’t it at all. That ‘fifth’ was a reference to the Fifth Column, that the blog was all about destabilizing the status quo from within the press...” she trailed off, reaching out for Nicki and once again wishing she were there. “Never read them much. Jensen was paranoid about what was trackable. Didn’t want us to use the clinic’s servers to go poking into anything that would give the government extra ammunition against us. Well, anything beyond what we absolutely needed for our clients. I used to tease him for being paranoid… then after he left well,” she shrugged, “the joke was on me.” Thinking back to Rachel’s original question, rephrased as a statement though it was, she admitted, “I thought the Fifth Estate went out of existence sometime during the first or second purge, but Wes tells me they still pop up from time to time. He showed me something attributed to them… reads like a coded message if you ask me.”

“Nicki was right about the name. MacKenzie came up with it as an undergrad. Would have started using it then too if Agam hadn’t pointed out they really needed to be part of the media to be a journalistic fifth column. Or at least that’s the story.” Rachel stabbed at her food waving the fork around as she spoke. “They went to Syracuse together. I didn’t meet them until we were all in the grad program at Columbia.” 

Something twitched at the back of Alona’s mind. Syracuse... Columbia... Journalism... why did that feel familiar?

“We didn’t start blogging as the Fifth Estate until we were out of school and working in main-stream media. I was at the _Post_ , Mack had the _New York Times_ , and Agam went to Seattle to the _P-I_... Stayed there even after they went online only.” Rachel looked at her hands, which were shaking, and pressed them flat against the table. “There was one journalism professor who suspected it might be us. He kept making... overtures to Mack in particular. It could have seemed like flirting, but dude was gay, and he was always way too interested in the kind of writing we all did in our spare time. At the time, I thought he was just a nosy bastard. Maybe someone working for the US government. Of course now, I’m almost 100% sure he was on ORDA’s payroll. Makes me really damn glad we didn’t let anything slip.”

Connections snapped together in Alona’s mind, electrical impulses zapping the knowledge into place—suspicions, old hunches finding root as correct, as truths in her mind. “Wait, are you saying you started the Fifth Estate along with Mackenzie _Ackles_ , and...”

“Agam Darshi,” Rachel filled in for her. 

“The reporter for the Seattle _PI_ and syndicated Op-Ed writer who disappeared during between the first and second purges?”

“Yep,” Rachel confirmed around a mouthful of foot, shooting Alona a wry grin that seemed more sad than cocky. “That’s us. We’d had suspicions of _some_ massive government program and global cover-up since our first semester at Columbia. Two of our classmates and a biochem PhD candidate mysteriously dropped off the face of the Earth only to resurface six months later with bizarre explanations for their absence, and a cockamamie cover story that made the Kennedy Assassination seem like straightforward, honest truth telling. We thought maybe they’d stumbled on some kind of military super-soldier program, possibly something clandestine involving the UN... Agam used to joke it was really a bad cover-up for alien abductions.” Rachel smiled again, her gaze distant and wistful. “We had no clue.” She shrugged, “Turns out we were all _right_ , just not at all in the way we imagined.”

Fighting off her impatience, Alona resisted the urge to interrupt and tell Rachel to get to the point. There was no deception or hostility coming from her, just a bone-tired, soul-aching sadness and sense of loss coupled with the need to be heard. A woman alone for too long, the sole survivor with everyone she ever knew or loved long gone, lost to her. She was telling the stories of her life knowing there was no one left who shared in her memories, but hoping that by speaking the truth she could make someone else know... give her confirmation her life, her existence as she’d known it was real. Had really happened.

“The professor contacted us not long before the Ackles and Collins story broke. He was asking us questions, trying to sus out what we knew. Needless to say, we didn’t answer, but we took it as a sign something was going down. Agam started an off the books investigation—it was so off the books I didn’t even find out about it until after Mack disappeared,” Rachel shuddered, her eyes going dark, her interest in her food clearly lost. “You can’t imagine what that was like.”

“I think I can, considering I was on the run. The media couldn’t decide to paint me as a collaborator or a victim,” Alona said testily.

“You got that right, about the media, I mean,” Rachel snorted. “ORDA knew you were a traitor. Worse they knew what _kind_ of traitor you were. They call you blood traitors. Agam thought it was funny, like the ‘Harry Potter’ books, or at least that’s the joke she used to mean. ORDA was clamoring for your heads, but some of the EICs and bureau chiefs got it into their heads that the narrative played much better if the public didn’t know whether to root for you or fear you. My boss thought it might be a case of Stockholm syndrome. He was hoping you’d turn out to be the next Patty Hearst.” 

“But that’s not what I meant. You _knew_ what you were getting into. I know you had to have been tipped off long before Jensen Ackles showed up on your doorstep. Your wife knew. Of all of us, Mack was the one who was most skeptical. Long after I’d begun to suspect what I was, she was still clueless. She had no idea her brother or her brother-in-law were involved. It must have blindsided her. To us, it was like she disappeared into her parent’s house and was never heard from again. It took me almost a year to confirm they hadn’t just killed her outright.

“But while I was investigating and keeping my distance, Agam was digging deeper. I think losing Mack was a breaking point for her. It had been them against the world almost her entire adult life, and now suddenly it was just her… I was always the third wheel, and my brand of healthy caution wasn’t working for her. 

“I left my job and went into hiding when they started testing. I knew I would fail, and I didn’t want to get disappeared. Agam took the opposite approach.”

It took Alona a few moments to figure out what Rachel was saying. “She infected herself?”

Rachel nodded, “And started snooping around rumored ORDA bases. The trail led her back home to Seattle, and she… disappeared. For a long time I thought that was it. I distributed the occasional blog post as a coded message to see if I could draw her out, but for over a year, I got nothing.” She paused again, collecting her thoughts. “Then six months ago, I get a coded response.”

“She’s alive?” Alona asked, unable to keep the shock from her voice. “And has a memory?” she added.

“And she’s working in their communications department,” Rachel added with a nod. “At first, I didn’t believe. But the communiques kept coming and she knew things— At first I thought it was a set-up. Started expecting them to break down my door any second. Because if they had cracked Agam and someone was just using information she supplied, they’d have enough to find me. But time went on and I wasn’t caught. I started to wonder. Then she started feeding me things… secrets ORDA couldn’t know without acting on… that there was a faction of the Licinians working undercover that were allied with the Fropali and the Naiians. That there were humans working with them. That the Naiians had managed to insert an agent…”

Alona found herself nodding despite herself. “All that we knew, go on.”

Rachel looked unimpressed. “The thing was, all the while I thought there was something bigger she was holding back, some grand secret. Then I got another message… one that seemed to say something so… impossible, I couldn’t believe it. It was like she expected me not to believe. I got another message that essentially told me to get caught.”

“So you let yourself get caught?” Alona asked skeptically.

“You know how you were saying there are some things you just have to know?”

Alona nodded.

“Well, it was that kind of secret.”

“You planning to tell me, or…”

“The message said that Misha Collins survived. That he was alive.”

Alona’s heart sank and she sank with it, falling into the seat across the table from Rachel. Alona had hoped; they’d all hoped the rumor wasn’t true. As much as they would have liked Misha to be alive, but not like this. “We’d uh, heard that too. Word is they reprogrammed him to be an ultimate weapon against us. He hates us and wants nothing more to destroy… never mind, you were saying?” 

“She said he was alive and on our side. That he’d gotten most of his memories back… and ORDA had no clue.”

“What?”

“The message said there was something I needed to see. That would make me believe… so I let myself get caught. And they beat me, and interrogated me, but I didn’t talk. I expected the torture to begin in earnest, figured maybe they’d dose me with the damn _cure_ , and that would be it, that I’d been wrong and Agam had sold me out, or maybe it never was her at all. But then they locked me in a room and said the General was coming, and an hour later, Gina Bellman walked in,” Rachel explained.

“Wait, what?” Alona stammered, heart jack rabbiting in her chest. “Bellman’s, Bellman _was_ Naiian. I know. Jensen told me. I reviewed the records Genevieve Padalecki pulled—” Shock quickly gave way to fear and revulsion. Alona pushed back, grateful the chair on this side of the table wasn’t bolted down. If a Naiian was working for them. If one their own… anything Rachel knew, anything at all—it didn’t matter if she hadn’t broken under interrogation or if they hadn’t dosed her. A Naiian could have gleaned every secret in her mind.

“I know,” Rachel agreed. “I know what you’re thinking, but that’s just it. She’s Naiian, but it’s like she doesn’t know how to be. Her mind was an open book to me, but she—I never felt her reach out once. It was like she didn’t even know we were telepaths. I mean, she suspected sure, and she asked me questions about our abilities, threatened me, but she didn’t try to communicate with me, didn’t read my mind, didn’t even brush my emotions.”

“Wait, you’re saying you were in a room with ORDA’s Commander in Chief, who we now know is actually Naiian, who hates what she is and doesn’t know we’re telepathic?” 

“And she didn’t guard her mind. She didn’t take any drugs. And I know everything she knows. I found out Wil’s wife Felicia is still alive. She doesn’t seem to remember who she is though, but then again, that could be just Bellman’s perception. Collins is alive. As far as she was concerned, he was a great success story. Loyal to the cause. Almost back to his old strength. But the details she knew… they corroborated everything the coded messages had said. It was enough to make me trust what the messages said.

“There’s more. A side effect of the cure was everyone’s memories got wiped. She doesn’t understand her own telepathy, so everyone who knew the location of Miradoma is either dead or lost their memory.”

“So no one knows the location,” Alona murmured, inching her seat closer to the table.

“But she’s been looking. Tracking suspected Naiian allies, using Licinian spies. Her troops have encountered Naiians on enough worlds that they’ve got the location narrowed down. They’re going planet by planet. It’s only a matter of time… Secretly she’s hoping she can lure Ackles into trying to mount a rescue mission at the same time she strikes. She suspects they’ve got someone on the inside, but she doesn’t know who.”

“How, how did you escape?” Alona asked.

“Part of the message. The General got called away, and I found my restraints conveniently unlocked. The door unlocked… after that, I have a feeling cameras selectively blacked out… it wasn’t all that hard. But they’ve pursued me like a pack of wolves hunting down injured prey ever since. That’s not why—that’s not why I needed help.”

“Then what is?” Alona asked, still reeling.

“The message I got last week. Alexis Hanniger, she’s the M.D., Ph.D. behind the human-sourced portions of Hanniger has a project. She suspects she’s found the plant, and she’s feeding information through him in hopes it gets out to Ackles. There are three keys to the jamming network. They’re electronic, kind of like tricorders or GDOs, if you know your sci-fi,” Rachel offered.

“I worked with Jensen for years. I know my sci-fi.” 

“Well you get the idea. Only she’s lied about one of the keys. She’s having Hanniger feed their agent a dummy location.”

Alona hissed under her breath.

“I see that rings true. Well, here’s the thing. Agam fed me the real location of the key. We can still bring down the jamming network, and keep it down. We can give Ackles a way to get the rest of us off the planet and back home to safety.”

“What about an ORDA counter strike?” Alona asked. “That’s been—we’ve all been afraid of that. We escape only to have to run again, and I mean how far can a million people run?”

“If you can help me get the word to the right people… Agam has a solution for that,”

“Do I want to know?” Alona asked.

“Let’s just say it involves… coming out of the closet on a global scale. Look,” Rachel moved to stand, and Alona didn’t stop her. “I can help you, but I got another message this morning.”

“This _morning_?” 

“One of the ex-Naiians in Bellman’s inner circle is showing some signs of regaining his former talents. Bellman’s going to figure out the cure doesn’t work long term, and when she does…”

“Everyone dies,” Alona finished. “So if we’re going to do this, we have to do it now.” Looked like she was going to have to call Nicki back from that trip after all.

~~~

**Early that Morning, ORDA Base, Texas, Earth**

It was pure luck that Agam and Misha were in a position to know the moment Bellman’s vague suspicions coalesced into something firm and dangerous.

Agam, through some string of manipulation, bribes, and judicious use of Licinian contacts on Earth, had managed to locate Misha’s symbiote and break it out, so far without being detected. Although she was now working in the DC Metro area, managed to get herself an off-the-books trip to Texas to hand deliver it to Misha.

Misha, of course, couldn’t risk taking Tyler, or any of the other recovering Naiians they’d identified and quietly shuffled into their unit, so he agreed to meet Agam alone. 

There were very few places near the Texas complex at which anyone could meet at all in secret. One of those was a series of bluffs that happened to run up against the access tunnels that led to General Bellman’s private helipad.

Agam had just handed off the symbiote to Misha, much to his relief, when the tunnels unexpectedly opened again and General Bellman and her entourage emerged. 

They were doing their best just to hide and go unnoticed, when Lt. Mirakimi responded to Colonel Simmons’ question in French.

“Lt. Mirakimi, I didn’t know you spoke French,” General Bellman replied. 

If Mirakimi heard the suspicion in her voice, he didn’t show it. Instead he beamed, his face lighting up like a Christmas tree. “Thanks! I didn’t speak French. I’ve had a lot of trouble with my language skills, but I know you have to know at least three languages to get into the diplomatic corps, and I have some friends who are in that and love it, so... I spent a lot of time working on it, got tutoring, and now I’m doing much better. I’m working on Spanish too,” he added with a blush. 

Bellman stared at him, eyes searching, scrutinizing, until at last, she seemed to relax and let it go. “Well, I’m really happy for you. It must be great to have some success with a skill that has troubled you for so long. Keep up the good work.” She gave Mirakimi a patronizing pat on the shoulder and stepped back.

Mirakimi was still grinning like a maniac when they exchanged salutes.

“Shit,” Misha hissed from his vantage point, scrambling backwards and hunkering down on his belly to ensure he stayed well out of the line of sight of Bellman and her aides. 

“I’ll say,” Agam agreed. “So just how humped do you think we are?” She glanced at Misha.

“Well,” he began, flipping over so he was leaning back, propped up on the embankment on his elbows. “It depends. I don’t think Bellman could tell if his French was the product of lots of hard work and training or Naiian genetics. I don’t think Bellman’s language skills are particularly strong. At least not strong enough to recognize accent authenticity.”

“But...”

Misha glared at her.

“Oh no, there’s definitely a but in there, don’t look at me like that.” She gave Misha’s leg a retaliatory slap.

“But, it’s bad enough she took notice. And well this is Mirakimi and _linguistics_ was his specialty. I remember that much. He was the best of the best, so him suddenly showing better language faculties is going to put them on alert.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and toed at the ground, eyes fixed resolutely on his feet. “That conversation was definitely recorded. Sooner or later, Bellman’s going to have one of her French language experts listen to it, and she’ll realize his accent was almost _perfect_. When she does that, we’re all fucked. It’s all a question of how soon she follows up and how badly she reacts when she gets the answer.”

“Worst case?” Agam asked, sounding like she really didn’t want to know the answer. 

“We’re already dead. If she’s rattled, she could have her answer by now, and have already issued execution orders. Best case,” he shrugged his good shoulder, “We’ve got a week, maybe a little more—and that’s assuming she gets distracted, uses email, and her expert doesn’t pick up on the significance right away. Middle of the road? We’ve got a day. Maybe two.”

“Can you get your people in position by then?” she asked, doubtful. 

“Maybe? But there’s no guarantees the Naiians will just happen to move on our schedule.”

“What if we tipped them off?” 

“Grab the recording and leak it?” Misha asked for clarification.

“No, I’m thinking more direct. I’ve got a journalist friend and a secure means of contacting her?”

“Secure?” Misha asked skeptically.

“Hasn’t been cracked yet, in two years, and if we do this right, I won’t have to contact her again. She can get in touch with Alona Tal, and _Alona_ can use the Licinians to contact the Naiians.”

“Sounds kind of like alien ‘telephone,’ how do we know they’ll get the right message?”

Agam just glared at him. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”


	10. All Is Not Lost

**Late August 2015—Southern Maine, Earth**

More than two years since he’d last set foot on Earth’s surface and over a year since he’d last looked at the planet from space, and it all came down to this. In the end, getting back on Earth hadn’t been the tricky part. Once Aldis was inside ORDA and had made contact with his Licinian allies it hadn’t been all that difficult for them to get a clean window for an aperture to Earth. 

The tricky part came with what to do after. Once they got planetside it would be much harder to move around. Ever since his kidnapping years before, ORDA had perfected tracking intraplanetary wormholes. ORDA had long since patched the overflow problems Jensen had exploited during their escape. Add to that the jamming field and they had quite a problem. It was one thing to open _a_ wormhole for the ADF team to arrive, but quite another to open multiple wormholes to get them into position once they were there.

Still, a weight lifted from Jensen’s psyche the moment he and Katie stepped through the aperture. One moment he was standing in the aft cargo bay of the _Collins_ , the next he was stepping out into muggy, miserable Maine in August, greeted by a few swarms of biting insects and two of his oldest friends. 

“Jensen!” Alona exclaimed, running at him. She tried to jump into his arms, seemed to remember his injury at the last minute and stopped in front of him, folding him into a hug.

“I knew I’d make it back,” he murmured into her hair.

“And we always knew you’d come,” Nicki added, wrapping her arms around them both. “Come here, Katie.”

That had been perhaps the most difficult part of the mission—the decision of who to bring. In the end, it was just he and Katie that had gone. Genevieve and Jared remained behind on Aurora along with Tony to keep things running on the ground, while Roberts and Harris remained onboard the _Collins_ and took it into orbit along with the _ADF Ferris_ to defend against incoming wormholes. 

“We need to talk. There’s been a development,” Alona explained breaking away.

~~~

“So the idea is if we pull the files from their central computer, what?” he asked later that night.

“Our fear is if we just broadcast a statement, even if you manage to get Bellman or someone else’s confession, it’s not going to be enough to convince the troops to stand down. Someone will order them to invade Aurora and once they’re on the ground…” Rachel said. 

“Yeah that wouldn’t be pretty.” He was still trying to get used to the idea his _sister_ had been inches from stumbling onto ORDA’s secret back before the purge and that her friends were the ones currently saving their collective ass from a trap. “But what’s so special about these files?”

“Agam says they contain the un-doctored personnel files on every Naiian in ORDA. They show what happened to them, their families. There are _notes_ from Dr. Hanniger—she’s—”

“Yeah, we know who she is,” Katie interjected, her voice rough and threatening. 

Jensen shot her a look. Ever since finding out just who Aldis was with and how _much_ danger he was in they’d been finding it hard to reign in their reactions, which was especially bad if they wanted to blend in. “You said someone in General Bellman’s inner circle was coming back to himself. Do you know who?”

“If I translated the code right, someone Mirakimi,” Rachel answered.

“Holy shit,” Katie breathed as Jensen asked, “When did Agam send this latest message?”

“Twenty-four hours ago. Collins told her it meant we don’t have much time.”

“Well, yeah,” Katie stammered getting up from the table around which they’d all gathered and starting to pace back and forth. They were in Alona and Nicki’s library, which currently looked more like a war room, the incongruous fireplace and puffy chairs aside. 

Rachel was staring at Jensen, confused, and he could feel the _ping_ of her question even if she wasn’t directly asking.

“Mirakimi knows where Miradoma is. Which means he knows where Aurora is. He can take ORDA there. They’d come out on the far side of the planet, but it’s not like they can’t just continent hop once they get there,” Jensen explained.

“You don’t have a jamming field in place, I take it?” Rachel asked, smiling for the first time since they’d arrived that day. Admiration and respect flowed from her along with an outpouring of relief.

“If we’d wanted to stay prisoners we would have stayed here,” Katie shot back.

“Not criticizing,” Rachel said, raising her hands in surrender. “Pretty damn awesome of you, in fact.”

“So these files are going to convince people to just, give up? Stop fighting? We’re betting our future on that?” Katie asked, returning to her seat.

Rachel glared up at her. For a moment it looked like she wouldn’t respond out of spite, but instead she answered. “The files will buy you time and international outrage. If my understanding of Earth’s current extraplanitary diplomatic entanglements, you’ll buy yourselves the support of Earth’s allies too. Anyone who’s treated this like some kind of internal civil war or even a matter of planetary policing will reconsider their position. Trust me, I’ve touched Bellman’s mind. She’s not crazy, just full of self-loathing, internalized phobias, zealotry, and a healthy dose of fanaticism for eugenics. Bellman actually thinks she’s sick and she wants to be cured. She just has a little bit of a double standard because she’s not willing to subject herself to the same ‘side effects’ as everyone else. But Hanniger? Deep down Bellman’s afraid of her. Hanniger _knows_ what she’s doing. She knows what we are and what makes us tick. She took the research the allied Licinian faction gave her and ran with it. She sees us as lab rats, experiments, lesser beings and she has no qualms about torture, because that doesn’t even enter the occasion. In her mind this is all just pure science. Our rights, survival, self-determination, they don’t even enter her mind.”

“So, the files will be a bucket full of crazy that will make people think twice before believing what she says?” Katie asked.

“To put it lightly,” Rachel answered.

Jensen considered carefully, really wishing he’d brought Genevieve along for this. 

“Gen’s needed at home,” Katie said, sensing Jensen’s thoughts.

“Yeah, but she’d still be better at hacking into a damn secure computer core than me,” Jensen answered.

“Someone else could go,” Nicki offered.

“Yeah, I could do it,” Rachel agreed. 

“No,” Jensen and Katie responded simultaneously.

“We need you handling the broadcast and this mega-WikiLeaks-style docudump you have planned,” Jensen explained.

Katie giggled at Rachel’s look of shock. “Don’t be so surprised. We haven’t been off the planet for _that_ long. And despite spending much of our time before that housed in an underground base, we still weren’t exactly living under a rock.”

“Okay, got it. You need me elsewhere, but that doesn’t explain why Jensen has to go if he doesn’t think he can get in.”

“Oh, I can get in. Provided the codes Agam got us are correct,” Jensen said. “I’m just not as good as _improvising_ as some others would be.”

“But—”

“It has to be Jensen, because he has to be bait,” Katie explained.

“Bait?” Alona and Nicki chorused sounding horrified.

“They said you were bat shit crazy, but this is something else,” Rachel observed.

“Look, we have the location of the keys. According to the revised intel, one’s with Bellman, another’s with Hanniger, and the third is actually with Colonel Simmons,” Jensen began, the others nodding in agreement. “Simmons _hates_ me. We’re talking illogical, irrational, disobey orders and screw the universe to fulfill my personal vendetta level of hate. Put me on the same _continent_ with him, and we’ll fail our damn mission.”

“He blames Jensen for the death or betrayal of everyone on his team,” Katie explained. “Back in the day, Simmons was Kane’s XO… you know who Kane was?”

Surprisingly it was Rachel who nodded the most emphatically and spoke first. “Lapdog to General Lehne, conspired with Dr. Hanniger to kidnap Ackles, shot and nearly killed Captain Padalecki, and then committed suicide himself to prevent them from using his body once he learned the truth.”

“Yeah. He also, very importantly, tipped Jensen and me off to Bellman’s conspiracy,” Katie added. “But in Simmons’ mind, he’s crazy, traitor, and dead because of Jensen. Then there’s Barnes—”

“Crazy and dead,” Nicki chimed in. “He almost caught Jensen and me during the purge. He wound up a bit… dead in the process.” 

“And Mirakimi—”

“Who was a zombie until very recently,” Rachel added, understanding.

“And Hodge—”

“You mean your guy undercover?”

“That would be him,” Katie agreed. “So we can’t let Jensen near Simmons. We can’t send anyone else he’d know either, so that’s going to fall to your refugee recruits.”

Nicki nodded; she’d clearly been expecting that once she realized who Simmons was. 

“Jensen can’t go near Hanniger either,” Alona stated. 

“No,” Katie agreed. “She knows far too much about Naiian physiology, and if she has access to his old files, which she definitely does, she’ll want to experiment on him. Jensen can hold his own, but there are risks and then there’s stupidity. And Jensen going after Hanniger would be an exercise in stupidity. Besides, Aldis may need medical attention, and you’re not going to send Jeff, so it’s gotta be me.” 

“So Jensen gets to do the hacking—”

“He’s planning to get caught,” Nicki surmised.

“Well, not _caught_ caught, not captured, but yeah. I want to give Bellman every reason to come after me. Follow me. Unlike Hanniger, her level of obsession I can handle,” Jensen explained. Seeing a few confused faces. “Don’t forget she’s Naiian, which mean’s she’s got vulnerabilities Hanniger doesn’t have. She _will_ come after me. I can lure her somewhere I can get the key and a confession.”

“You have someplace in mind,” Katie observed.

He nodded.

“But you’re not going to tell us.” It was a statement, not a question.

“If you don’t know, you can’t give it away if you’re caught,” he pointed out, “so—”

“Fine, fine, I won’t go digging in your mind,” Katie agreed.

~~~

“Is what they say about you true?” Ty, a teenage refugee and long-term resident of Nicki and Alona’s B&B asked, regarding Jensen warily.

They’d spent the afternoon and evening going through plans, figuring out who to use where, figuring out transportation. They’d managed to arrange for two apertures—one would deliver Katie and Jensen’s teams to Texas where Hanniger and the computer core both currently resided, while the other would take the refugee-lead team to Paris to confront Simmons.

They’d be leaving before first light, which, even this late in August was still damn _early_. It would allow them to take advantage of the time difference—hitting the Texas base in the middle of the night and Paris just after lunch time when shift changes and food coma would play to their advantage. From there they were on their own. Any wormholes they opened could be tracked or jammed. 

By this time tomorrow, they’d either all be back on Aurora, or they’d be dead. There was the added possibility they could be back on Aurora and fighting off an ORDA-backed incursion, but they’d cross that bridge when they came to it. 

Thing was, Jensen had _been_ here before. He’d done this last night on Earth shit. He’d been in battle and fought and lost and won and lived and died, and he was trying hard not to think about how the last time he’d done _this_ , Misha had been alive and by his side.

He tried even harder not to think about the prospect of seeing Misha again. That he could be alive. That everyone says he _was_ alive. Of course the question remained whether it was really Misha and whether he was _really_ on their side.

The others though… the refugees? They hadn’t done this before. Sure, most of them had been living in fear, in hiding, on the run for months or years now, but it wasn’t the same. They hadn’t lived through the helplessness of waiting. They were anxious and hopeful and afraid, their fear, even the humans’ fear, was palpable.

But then Ty was still staring at him expectantly, this defiant gleam in his eye, and Jensen couldn’t get lost in reflection any longer. “I don’t know,” Jensen replied, his teeth gritted against the assault of empathic pain that was bleeding off the terrified Naiians. “What do _they_ say about me?”  
I  
“They say you’re not bad, for a… for an alien, but you’re a kind of a bigot. You don’t trust humans, don’t want them working for you. They say no matter what you preach, you still think you’re better than us.”

Apparently _they_ was some combination of the media and ORDA-influenced gossip mills. Jensen squeezed the bridge of his nose, massaging. Oh how he wished he could will away all the questions, the stupid beliefs, the neediness of everyone around him. Let him be, in peace, maybe then he wouldn’t suffer so… But he’d returned to Earth with a mission. He had a purpose, and every second that passed was a second lost, one second less to plan, and one less second to save his people _their people._ “Do you trust me?” he asked dropping his hands to his sides. He leaned in closer, staring Tyler in the eye until he blinked, flinging away. 

“N—no,” Tyler answered. Stammering he added “I just met you. I don’t _know_ you.” Jensen had the distinct idea Tyler would go on apologizing if he didn’t do something to interrupt Tyler’s model.

“Right. You don’t trust me, yet, because you don’t know me. Why would you trust someone you don’t know? There’s no basis.”

“I—I don’t—”

“It’s a rhetorical question, genius,” he muttered. “That feeling, that frustrated look you’ve got going on because you _want_ to trust, and you know, deep down, it’s inherently illogical; that’s how _I feel_. I don’t hate humans. I have nothing against humans as a group, a race, a species. On _my_ world, humans make up a significant part of the population. I trust them. Because I know them. Their fears are my fears. They face the same threats and obstacles as do I; we share hopes and dreams. But here on _Earth_? I don’t _know_ any of you. And that means until you’ve proved you’re trustworthy, I can’t fully trust _any of you_.”

“But you denied Carmichael and Bowman and cut Stevens from the list,” Ty protested, talking about the various team assignments. “They only thing they’ve got in common is they’re all human.”

Jensen took a good look at Ty and sighed. “I have issues with trusting humans from Earth from exclusively human families who live exclusively on _Earth_. If there’s one thing experience has taught me, it’s that you can’t overestimate how powerful a motivator threatening someone’s family can be.”

“I don’t; I don’t understand,” Ty admitted.

“The powers that be on Earth, for all intents and purposes, are the xenophobic, human forces at the operational helm of ORDA. What they say, what they do, ripples through everything else that happens on the planet. They hate Naiians. Their goal is to see every last one of us rounded up, imprisoned, and then either ‘cured’ or killed. As far as they’re concerned this planet belongs to Humans and humans alone, and however long we are here, we’re _tainting_ it,” Jensen began. “Do you see where this is going? They will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. To achieve compliance they are willing to kidnap, torture, maim, and kill anyone who stands in their way, regardless of citizenship.”

“But isn’t that all—racist paranoia?” Ty stammered, his hands flailing in the breeze. “How do you know that’s real, and why would humans be less trustworthy?”

“You’re not less trustworthy. Some of you just have more of the wrong buttons to push.” _Fuck!_ Jensen thought. “And as for paranoia—they kidnapped my niece and nephew and tortured them, experimented on them. They took my sister-in-law, a human, and held her captive, and then they took my brother, a full-blooded, natural-born Naiian and they threatened to murder his children and disappear his wife if he didn’t do what they said. They _implanted_ electronics and tracking devices in his body to see where he went.”

The kid looked devastated, so Jensen wrapped an arm around his shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze.

“Go to sleep kid. You’ll need it while you can get it. Don’t worry, your family is coming too. We don’t leave our allies behind either. You’re welcome on Aurora. But tomorrow’s a big day, and it’s going to come soon enough, so…”

“Get some sleep?” Ty asked.

“Yeah.”

~~~

**Late August 2015—Nullspace**

The music swelled around them and the rest of the world fell away. They were everywhere and nowhere. Alone and together. Outside the universe and connected at its very heart. Jensen and Misha, inseparable even by death, rebirth, and everything in between. 

Jensen closed his eyes and rested his head on Misha's shoulder, letting the music and the moment take him away, just letting himself exist. 

Warm, solid arms with gentle hands closed around Jensen's waist, as Misha pulled him close. Misha rubbed up and down Jensen's spine, every touch a caress, a kiss, impossible sensation on his magically unscarred skin. He relished the feeling, basking in every synapse, content to let Misha lead. 

Round and round they went in lazy circles as their steps wove arcs and figure eights around the dance floor. 

Misha pressed a kiss to Jensen's hair, and Jensen let out a noise--more than a breath, less than a moan, an expression of blissful contentment and a mourning keen for everything lost. 

After a few minutes, Jensen realized they were floating. No ground beneath their feet, just air as they hovered, revolving slowly in time with the beat. He opened his eyes and took in the sight beneath them...

The dance floor had been replaced with the docking bay of what Jensen had come to think of as their space ship. Only the deck wasn't its usual iridescent material that hovered somewhere between titanium and obsidian, instead the Milky Way reflected on its surface as if they were dancing in space, hovering somewhere above the galactic core perpendicular to the galaxy's axis. As they turned, Jensen took in the viewport behind them, its forcefield separating them from the emptiness of space and the planet around which they orbited, Aurora hanging like a blue-green purple gem in space. It was so, so beautiful...

"It is beautiful," Misha murmured breaking their silence, "but not as beautiful as you."

Jensen lifted his head, meeting Misha's eyes. "How... did I?" 

"No." Misha was shaking his head. "You didn't say anything, didn't even project it." He leaned closer and brushed his lips across Jensen's on his way to whispering against Jensen's ear. "Sometimes I just know what you're thinking."

"You're a part of me." It wasn't a question, but sometimes it felt like the greatest unknown in Jensen's universe. Even after Tony's explanation he was left wondering...

"I'm real," Misha answered the unspoken question. "As real as you believe I am. Sometimes I think I'm more real in here than I am out in the world, but that's because in here, I get to be with you." He smiled as he said it, and when he pulled back enough so Jensen could look at him, stars were twinkling in his eyes. 

Or maybe they were tears. But they had decided long ago there was no place for sadness in here. 

Besides, Misha was smiling. Big and real and alive, and Jensen couldn't stop himself from laughing. 

"Sometimes I forget how much I love you," he admitted. "When I'm out there I forget just how... incredible we were together. How much I miss that... and then I come in here and it... you..."

Misha grinned, and Jensen was sure he was going to crack a joke, but instead he said, "I remind you there are special things out there, things worth fighting for."

Jensen nodded, unable to stop the tears that flooded his eyes, unable to block the crush of reality that came flooding in... every issue and worry and ear pressing on his mind in the real world. 

"Shhhhh, shh," Misha soothed folding himself around Jensen until Jensen's body was enveloped in Misha's embrace, strong hands clutching Jensen’s back, Misha's heartbeat strong and true thumping in time against Jensen's chest, Misha's familiar scent like home and leather and fresh cotton, overwhelming Jensen's senses. "It will be all right in the end; I have faith in you... You've just have to remember to believe in yourself."

"Misha we found... there are people out there. Naiians ORDA changed, made human... they're changing back, becoming themselves again, but they don't remember who they are and ORDA's brainwashed them to hate us... and we don't know how many. If it's everyone or just a few... and I don't know what it means. If you are still out there somewhere, could you be you again instead of their weapon? Would you be a stranger? Would you know me?" His voice trailed off and it became harder to meet Misha's eye. 

Beneath their feet the galaxy glowed brighter, spun faster, as if anticipating Misha's response.

"I need you to promise me something," Misha said at last. 

Jensen expected him to break eye contact, maybe even dissolve beneath his touch, but Misha gripped tighter and held Jensen's gaze. He was serious, and this was--felt-real in a way little else did. "Anything," Jensen breathed, surrender washing through him. _Even if it means losing you... Even if it means killing you... Even if I have to let this go... _The fears he'd refused to acknowledge for so long swelled and rushed out of him with his breath. One word and they were gone. A resolution...__

__But when Misha smiled at him, sad, but proud, it tasted like absolution._ _

__"Just remember that out there, in the real world, appearances can be deceiving. Everything is not how it seems. Not always. Just remember that, when you find me."_ _

__Jensen blinked tears out of his eyes. "Are you saying I should have faith? Give you the benefit of the doubt? Believe in you?" Even if everyone thinks I'm wrong and all signs point to you being gone or brainwashed to the point of being a completely different person._ _

__"No," Misha answered. "Believe in _us_. Together we've always been more than the sum of our parts. Some things never change. That's one of them."_ _

__"An immutable fact?" Jensen asked, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a smile._ _

__"More like a fixed point in time, and I'm asking you to have the good sense not to try to alter it," Misha explained._ _

__"Okay, I promise I won't go all 'Waters of Mars' on you."_ _

__Misha brought one hand up and stroked Jensen's cheek. "I know you won't. You just don't know it yet. But there's still time for you to trust yourself."_ _

__And once again Jensen got the sense Misha was speaking in riddles, responding to a part of the conversation to which Jensen was not privy, solving for equations that Jensen just couldn't see. "Wish I could stay here with you rather than going back out there," Jensen admitted._ _

__That earned another smile. "Stay and dance with me a while. The universe will still be waiting for you when you get home."_ _

__"Okay," Jensen whispered._ _

____

And they danced, revolving slowly, moving in time to the beat as they hovered above the deck of their star ship and the galaxy spun beneath their feet.

~~~

**September 1, 2015—ORDA Complex, Texas, Earth**

“Katie?” Jensen asked over the radio, his voice quiet. 

“Yeah?” she answered, her voice artificially hollow, but not strictly tinny, through the speakers. He could tell, even though he couldn’t quite _sense_ it at the moment, that she was asking why he was calling rather than just _sending_ the message to her.

“They’ve deployed the panantipropenol. I’m dosed,” he replied, pausing to lean against the elevator bay. He could still stand, but for how much longer? The telltale patchiness in his sensation, the feeling of fuzzing out at the periphery of his senses, it was all very familiar. But there was something… His head snapped up and he reached out, testing how far his senses could still go. _Weird._ “There’s something about the dose, it’s not the normal formulation. Seems to be hitting sensory coordination faster than motor coordination and both of those faster than straight-up telepathy. How’s that possible?”

“Um… Well, panantipropenol acts both by shutting down production of key neurotransmitters and pheromones and by interrupting binding sites. If someone tinkered with the formula so it blocks adhesion sites faster than it limits production—”

“Right, got it,” Jensen realized. “This was designed to affect adhesion faster than communication. Which suggests they may still not know the full extent of our telepathy, but this was definitely targeted at me. Not sure how big the dispersal field is, but this is gonna take us offline, at least for a little while. Make sure everyone’s on backup coms, encrypted, spread the word.”

Katie didn’t have to speak her reply; she broadcast her acknowledgement far and wide. “What about you?” she asked.

“Me?” Jensen said, pressing more of his weight into the doorjamb of the elevator bay. His right leg was completely numb up to the knee, and he was losing motor control in his quadriceps as his knee buckled. He could feel the early twitches of spasm in his left calf, and complete loss of control wouldn’t be far behind. It could have been terrifying; on a certain level it was. But then again, this was the reason why he’d spent so much time shooting up with panantipropenol, testing himself, getting used to adapting. Granted that had been in the comfort and safety of his own office or residence, but this had always been the goal. “I’ll manage,” he replied. “Katie, this is what I’ve been training for.”

“Yeah, but I was really hoping you wouldn’t need that training,” she muttered; then, louder, “Do me a favor, would you? Monitor your _T. beta_ and progcogitol levels and if they drop below one 25th of your normal range, give yourself a shot of the metabolism booster—I know it’s still in testing, but I don’t want your system to crash, and—”

“I’ll be fine, Katie. Just hang in there, keep everyone functioning, and don’t forget to use comms, especially in case it’s not just me that’s affected.” Jensen had his pack open, shifted around so he could access it with one hand while supporting his weight against the wall with the other. His fingers closed around the carbon fiber tubing of the chair and pulled it out. His thumb hit the switch as soon as it was clear of the bag. It sprang into shape as he let it drop to the floor, and not a moment too soon. Left knee gave out and he caught himself, lowering himself into the chair with his upper body strength. 

“I know; I will,” Katie agreed. “You in the chair?” 

“Yeah—” a clinking noise sounded over his shoulder, tiny, tapping, distant, but growing faster. “Look, someone’s coming. I gotta go.”

“Still headed towards the central detention hub?”

“Luke Skywalker, prisoner transfer from cell block 1138, yeah, that’s me,” Jensen quipped, unable to suppress the smile. “Wish me luck?” 

“Yeah, babe. Luck for all of us,” Katie replied. Jensen could hear the catch and waver in her voice that signaled he was holding back tears. “We’ll take down the keys for you. Signal us when you’re clear so you can move in on the last one.”

“Ackles out,” Jensen acknowledged, finishing the call. The comm disconnected and he was alone. Alone in his head. Alone with his chair, with his broken body, alone in this corridor, alone… But not. Even if he couldn’t sense them, he knew there were people here. Soldiers, hidden. Prisoners concealed. Somewhere in this building was the computer vault that held all the answers and concealed the truth. From everyone. It hid the imprisoned Naiians from themselves, hid the truth from the soldiers, hid the universe from everyone on Earth.

“Okay, here goes nothing, then,” Jensen said his fingers closed around the wheel guards. He just hoped damn sure Alona’s source, Mack and Rachel’s friend inside ORDA’s communications was telling the truth. Otherwise this would all be for nothing.

He took off at a steady clip, wheeling himself down the corridor as fast as he dared, keeping his ears open for the approaching thud and thump of footsteps. 

Slipping into alcoves and poorly lit doorways helped him to dodge two patrols, but still the footsteps followed him. It made sense. They probably had a life signs detector, or whatever ORDA was calling their equivalent these days. Thanks to the interference of the modified panantipropenol, though, he couldn’t tell if the people pursuing him were human, augmented humans, or Naiians starting to come back to themselves, nor could he tell how many (though he assumed there was more than one). 

Not content to play mouse any longer—and seriously needing to ditch any tangos before he reached his destination, Jensen slipped through an open door waited, and doubled back, exiting the adjoining hallway through another door further back the way he’d come. He did it quickly and silently, and it had the desired effect. The unit tracking him—three people, all male and much, much bigger than Jensen was when he was standing up—had paused to consult their tablets as Jensen’s movement’s confounded the slower-than-Naiian tracking system.

“Looking for me?” he asked, rolling out of the shadows, left hand already on the modified shock stick strapped to the chair’s frame. 

The three soldiers rounded on him in an instant, two moving in for the attack, while the third got on his comm and started barking orders. 

But Jensen was already moving. He pushed off hard with both hands, even as his left hand left the wheel guard to unholster the shock stick, his right staying on the wheel and sending him forward in an arcing spin. He ducked, bending forward as best he could—which wasn’t exactly lying flat, but got him low enough to slip under the first soldier’s swing and the second’s plasma blast without falling out of the chair. Meanwhile his left arm struck once, twice, and he skidded to a stop in front of the third soldier, shock stick raised again even as the two soldiers fell to the floor behind him with a delayed thud, thud. 

The third soldier’s eyes went comically wide as his grip on the tablet went slack and it started to fall from his fingers. “How did you?” he asked, gulping, but Jensen didn’t give him time to finish the sentiment.

He struck with the shock stick, and caught the tablet in his right as the man fell. A quick check let him see what the soldier had sent—he hadn’t gotten much farther than confirming position and, of course, alerting the entire base to a possible Ackles sighting—before jamming further comms. Jensen hesitated for a moment, weighing his options, before switching off the shock stick, and wheeling back to the adjoining corridor so he could toss the tablet away, give ORDA a false trail to follow. He took another 30 seconds to roll back to the fallen soldiers, shock them each again, and collect their weapons. There wasn’t really time to check if they were all dead, so he’d have to trust they were all significantly incapacitated and disarmed.

He could already hear more footsteps—boots, heavy treads, running this time—by the time he was on his way. Had he lingered too long?

Following the mental map, Jensen wheeled himself as fast as he dared down one hallway, then the next, around a corner, taking intentional detours and doubling back here or there to throw off his pursuers. He hadn’t _seen_ anyone else since the first group, but he could hear them close by, and twice he had to back track and try a different route to avoid a patrol.

Five minutes later, he had reached the elevator that was supposed to take him down to the secure computer core. He had the keycards and biometrics override they had prepared following Agam’s instructions (as relayed by Rachel), but just as he was about to approach the sensor, the lights went out. He could _hear_ the elevator clang to a halt. The whirs of servos shutting down all around him as the deeper hum and whir of emergency lighting kicked in. “Shit,” he whispered under his breath, tapping his comm and already digging through his backpack for what he’d need. “Katie? Got a problem,” he answered.

“Where the fuck are you?” she hissed back, her voice just a little distorted in his ear. “Do you need me to send backup?”

“No, keep the team running distraction. I just got to the elevator, but—”

“Everything went dark, yeah got that here too,” Katie replied. 

He heard a crunching sound followed by a wet smack and a muffled grunt followed by Katie’s heavy breathing and the distinctive sound of a body being lowered to the floor. “Uh, where the fuck are you? Do _you_ need help?” he asked.

“I’m chasing a key—bitch took a hostage,” Katie replied panting slightly.

“Aldis?” Jensen asked worriedly.

“I’ve got it under control, just making sure we don’t have unwanted company. Now what do you need? I think they’ve got the entire base on lockdown.”

“Can you get Rachel or anyone else on the tech end of things to get the lift doors open for me? And, uh? Let me know where the car’s at?” He hoped it was above him; otherwise his descent to the computer core would be blocked. 

“Well, good news is they’re not blocking our comms,” Katie answered, the silent ‘yet’ fully implied. “Don’t know if that means the Orellian tech we integrated is actually working, or if ORDA’s just listening to everything we say, but—”

Beside him the lift doors released, popping open about three inches. 

“You should be in business? Lift’s five levels above you… there’s an emergency access panel at the bottom that runs on secondary power. You should be able to use that to get out. Can you take it from there?” Katie asked.

“Got it,” Jensen replied, already busy fastening the Velcro around his legs and waist, to make sure the chair stayed fully attached. “Happy hunting.”

“You too,” Katie answered and the comm channel clicked off. 

Jensen had just gotten the doors open enough to fit his chair through and was in the process of tossing the climbing hook onto the central elevator cables, when a shot rang out behind him. He felt the heat as it passed his cheek followed by the too-loud _pling_ as it ricocheted off the far wall to who knows where, narrowly avoiding him. He heard, almost _felt_ the hook catch and clasp to the cables, and thank the fucking gods, because he’d already thrown himself forward rolling the chair to the edge and pushing off, climbing rope clutched firmly as his gloved hands as he started to fall. The hook held and his descent arrested with a sharp lurch that made his shoulders ache, and nearly dislodged the chair, but he didn’t have time to focus on it. 

_Screw stealth._

Holding the rope tight with his left hand, he drew with his right and fired… One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Five shots, five hits… and no more bullets (or soldiers) pouring down the elevator shaft after him. Which meant… 

_The panantipropenol’s wearing off really fast._ He’d _felt_ those minds—two Naiians, two mods, and a human. The Naiians stuck somewhere early in their transition back… they’d felt closest to the prisoners on the _Collins_ immediately after their attack. Not human anymore, but not quite back to their true selves. A rush of emotion poured through him—guilt, regret, remorse, anger, bitterness, resolve… In the end he knew he’d had no choice. But their deaths hurt him; more lives Bellman and her merry band of zealots had stolen. So close to the possibility of freedom, and they were just _gone_. 

He focused on climbing after that, lowering himself the six levels down to the computer core in record time. When he reached the bottom, he was panting and sweaty and full of adrenaline—and a resurgence of procogitol—and the frustration and anger he felt had bled into the background, leaving his mind clear, focused. 

Jensen made quick work of detaching the climbing hook from the cables, and then stowing the modified climbing harness back in his bag. As an afterthought, he also un-Velcroed himself from the chair—he could move his legs again, and sensation was slowly returning. He’d hate to need to run, and fall flat on his face. 

The emergency panel was right where Katie had said it would be. Just to the right of the doors. He flipped off the face plate with a knife from his tac vest and spliced in the necessary credentials and overrides to get the doors open. Before issuing the command, he took the time to set two charges on a 30-second timer, opened the doors, rolled out, let the doors close behind him and—

 _Boom! … Thwop!_ The two charges detonated behind him, severing the elevator cables and obliterating the bottom of the shaft. As it was the door bowed out behind him, and the shockwave made his ears pop, sending him rolling a dozen feet down the corridor. He was uninjured, though, and there was no way anyone was getting down using the elevator shaft. 

_Good_ , he sighed inwardly satisfied with his work. After all, it wasn’t like he’d been planning to exit that way. His right hand absentmindedly brushed against his symbiote where it lay pressed tight to his skin, safely protected under layers of clothes and vests. The only way in or out now, was by wormhole, which was how he’d always intended to leave. He reached out, testing the space around him. He could feel the pressure, resistance of the jamming field, perhaps the strongest he’d ever felt… there were still… _ways_ he knew. Holes and gaps, fluctuations, through which someone experienced, strong, with a solid connection to subspace—someone like Jensen—could force an aperture to open and connect. It would be taxing (and could quite possibly send him into hypoglycemic shock), but by the time he was ready to leave, the field wouldn’t be that strong.

He had their attention now, and the only way in or out was by wormhole… well, he supposed someone _could_ rappel down the elevator shaft with digging equipment to get past the rubble at the bottom… or just blast a whole down through several levels of the base… but he knew ORDA. He knew _Bellman_. Either option would take way too long, and they knew it. He’d be in and out, full jamming field in place or not, and they’d be chasing him. So, if they wanted a crack at him first, they were going to have to make it easier on him to escape.

Although the computer core was the only thing on this level, its isolation didn’t end with access by sole elevator shaft. As it was, Jensen had to wheel himself through half a dozen hallways and three checkpoints—which, thankfully, had backup overrides just like the elevator—before he even reached the room the damn thing was in. It didn’t take that long and he made quick work of the door guarding the core.

Once inside, he took a few seconds to breathe, and looked up—the core stretched up three levels above him and took up three-quarters of a room half the size of a football field. It was a labyrinthine tangle of human and alien tech, with lights pulsing red in some places and glowing blue in others. Together the system bathed the room in a sort of eerie purple light that when combined with the mournful whir of fans and cooling vents, sent a shiver up Jensen’s spine. “I’m in,” he said through the comms, using the all-call channel they’d picked up.

Seconds later his tablet beeped, instructions updating on the screen. Rachel was ready for him. She’d have the documents online and fast-tracked to the screens of every person on earth before he even had time to lure Bellman out of there. _Good_ , he thought, as he put Agam’s codes to work and plugged in his tablet at the nearest terminal, starting the download. 

Of course it was ORDA’s tech, which was far better and faster than anything else manufactured on earth, so the entire process, including decryption, only took about five minutes. All the while, Jensen reached out, periodically testing the jamming field to see if it had weakened. By the time the tablet beeped at him signaling the download was complete, the field was still at full strength… Which meant they were moving people into position. 

But who? Confronting Bellman down _here_ would be far from ideal.

Pushing the worry aside, Jensen signaled through the comms again that he was done and moving to phase two of his plan. He packed up his gear and rolled back to the door. 

No sooner had he got it open, when he felt the field fall. He was mid-roll when he heard the distinctive snap of an aperture and wheeled around the corner into the barrel of an M-16. 

“Freeze!” the soldier shouted.

But Jensen was already springing to action. He pushed up and out dive rolling out of the chair as he flicked the switch to collapse it back to his compact form. He rolled over, rising up on his knee, as he swung the collapsed chair around to strike the soldier’s legs. They crumpled with a sickening ‘thwap,’ even as Jensen was rising and yanking the rifle from the man’s hands.

Movement behind him had Jensen thrusting back with the butt of the rifle, earning a grunt from the soldier he hit in the solar plexus. She fell to the ground with a silent gasp even as Jensen temporarily dropped the chair, and cleared the rifle. Tossing the parts away, he drew his sidearm fired off two quick shots in the downed soldiers and dropped to pick up the chair, turning as he did so to bring the pistol to bear on a third soldier.

“How the fuck are you? They _drugged_ you!” the woman—barely more than a teenager—protested. She’d raised her hands in surrender, but it was a feint, and she reached out to grab Jensen’s gun even as she was speaking.

He stepped back, fast enough he almost overbalanced on his still-shaky legs. He shot, but it went wide, smacking through the nearby wall, as she lunged. 

Jensen managed to twist away as he fell back, catching his weight on his arms, and kicking out with his stronger leg to catch her ankles in a sweep. He flicked on the shock stick, where it was collapsed and still attached to the chair, and stepped over to where she’d landed, stunned. “Thing is, I _practice_ a lot. So I know how to handle myself.” He pressed the end against her neck, causing her to convulse and pass out. She wasn’t dead, but she _was_ incapacitated. “Funny thing,” he continued to no one in particular, “it also made me resistant to panantipropenol. Shit wears off a _lot_ faster than it used to.”

Stowing his chair, he reached out, about to open a wormhole when— _slam_ , a body careened into him from the side knocking Jensen to the ground, winding him. He heard the snap of an aperture just after he hit, unsure if his assailant had lunged out of the wormhole before it was fully open or if someone else had arrived. It didn’t matter now. Right now, all he could do was survive. His attacker was a brawny man with at least 100 pounds on Jensen, who was at a severe disadvantage being flat on his back. His limited sensation and impaired movement only worked against him in this position—he could find himself severely injured without realizing it. 

The guy had his arm to Jensen’s throat, trying to crush his trachea. He was holding Jensen’s right hand to the side so he couldn’t reach his gun or knife.

Jensen was toying with the idea of opening a wormhole and taking the dude with him, when a shot rang out. Jensen froze, eyes wide. He could be hit, bleeding out, and dying, and not even feel it. But instead, his attacker’s eyes rolled back, and he slumped against Jensen’s chest, the pressure against Jensen’s throat going slack. 

Flinching, Jensen used all the leverage he had to throw the guy off him and slide away. When he looked up, there was another soldier—an officer actually, with a Major’s gold oak leaves shining prominently on his lapels—staring down the sights on his sidearm, _gawking_ at Jensen for lack of a better term.

Jensen shook off the momentary shock, only to find himself freezing with his hand halfway to his holster. There was something—the man looking down at him hadn’t fired. He had a clear shot, but he hadn’t taken it. He wasn’t reaching for his comm or opening another aperture. He looked just as shocked as Jensen felt and… 

_You’re Naiian_ , Jensen found himself projecting. Because the Major wasn’t just on his way to being Naiian again, but fully aware, fully in control of his faculties, and trying like hell to suppress a wave of excitement and relief he was involuntarily projecting. 

“You’re him,” the Major said aloud, raising his hands in surrender and holstering his weapon. He took a step forward and reached out a hand for Jensen. “I have a message—Collins says to tell you to remember what he told you in nullspace.”

“Mi—he’s—” Jensen stammered, knowing immediately what the Major meant, his mind flashing back to the last time he’d shared mental space with Misha there.

“There’s no time. Bellman’s coming. You don’t want to confront her here. We’ll have your back,” he stammered. 

And sure enough, Jensen could _feel_ another wormhole opening. 

“Thanks,” he said as he regained his footing.

The major tossed him a salute, which Jensen returned hastily, smiling for the first time that day, and stepped through his own aperture, sliding through the cracks in the weakened jamming field. Finding the place he needed to lead them. Reaching out… connecting… and he stepped through.


	11. Truth's Continuum

**September 1, 2015—ORDA Complex, Texas, Earth**

“Come with you, huh?” Hanniger said, raising her hands slowly as she glanced over her shoulder at Katie.

“Yes, _doctor_ ,” Katie said moving her finger to rest on the trigger. “Now I asked nicely, but trust me when I say I don’t have to ask again,” she took a step closer. Hanniger was planning something, Katie could read it in her body language, but she couldn’t tell what, couldn’t even decipher if the threat was directed at Aldis or her or somewhere else. 

“Surely you wouldn’t—” Hanniger started.

“Shoot you?” Katie supplied, “Of course I would, and no I’m not worried about over penetration. Colonel Hodge can survive that shot,” she shook her head, “you, not so much.” It was true, too. Even with Aldis suppressing his Naiian traits, healing was instinctive and his body would respond accordingly. And if it didn’t, well Katie wasn’t the best doctor ever to have come out of ORDA training for no reason.

“Well that’s really a shame you feel that way, because I’m not going to come quietly.” 

“Katie!” Aldis shouted in warning.

Hanniger moved so fast, Katie couldn’t tell what she was doing until she felt sudden, searing pain just to the left of her sternum and looked down to see the needle buried in her chest, plunger fully depressed. The hypodermic was long and sharp and had penetrated clean through her vest, sliding into her chest between two ribs. She blinked, eyes widening in recognition, the split-second distraction, and Hanniger had whirled to the side, slapping Katie’s gun off target before she could respond. Hanniger’s hand came down like a knife edge, striking Katie’s forearm and hitting the nerve. 

Katie’s finger spasmed in the trigger, the shot flying far wide and ricocheting off a support beam at the far end of the hangar. The gun clattered to the concrete floor where Hanniger kicked it away. A quick elbow to the face had Katie reeling backwards, hands flying up to protect her nose. _Ow!_ was all she could think as the sudden movement jarred the syringe driving it farther into her chest. 

Distraction proved Hanniger’s best weapon as she once again used the opening to drive her stiletto heel into Katie’s ribs, putting her full body weight behind the kick and sending Katie sprawling ass over teakettle onto the concrete floor behind them. Wind knocked out of her, Katie lay stunned, struggling to make her lungs work. If not for the vest, the damn stiletto would have gone the way of the needle and imbedded itself in her chest, as it was she could tell at least one rib had broken, maybe two. She’d taken bullets in the vest that had hurt less. Deciding it was imperative to deal with needle threatening to jab her in the heart sooner rather than later, she reached down and carefully pulled the offending contraption from her chest. She didn’t need to ask to know what was in it. 

The room swam around her as the spasms in her diaphragm kept her from getting enough oxygen—or anything else—into her system. She could hear a struggle going on around her, but couldn’t respond. Aldis gave a grunt of pain, and adrenaline flooded her system, kick starting her reflexive healing response, and finally allowing her to take a breath. She rolled to a crouch and looking up, caught Aldis’ eye, finding abject terror there. She wanted to allay his fears, but soon both their attention was drawn away by the sound of a hammer cocking. Dr. Hanniger had drawn her 1911 and had it aimed directly at Aldis’ forehead. He had obviously tried to lunge for Katie’s gun and had dropped to one knee where he’d frozen, one hand raised in surrender the other clutching his side where Hanniger’s k-bar was imbedded in his flesh. With Hanniger’s weapon trained on him, he wasn’t even trying to move. 

Katie glanced at the location of the knife and realized what Hanniger had been aiming for. Katie could also tell she’d missed.

“Well _Aldis_ ,” Hanniger sneered. “The charade has been fun, but I think it’s about time we stopped pretending we don’t both know exactly what each other are. I had hoped to keep you around a while longer, seeing as you’ve been so _cooperative_ , but now that the jig is up, it’s too much of a liability... You’re too much of a liability. I do have one question... how long have you known?”

Confusion stopped Katie from acting. She wasn’t sure what Hanniger was asking, but Aldis sure as hell seemed to. 

An anguished expression caught somewhere between disgust, horror, regret, anxiety, and fear, twisted across his features. “Since you told me the truth,” he spat.

“Ah,” Hanniger replied obviously disappointed. “I was hoping it was sooner. I guess I expected too much of you. Too bad your dear Doctor is just a mere human now. I would have relished a little more of a challenge before I put a bullet in your head.”

That was it. Katie didn’t hesitate. Two silent strides had her directly behind Hanniger. “Lucky for you, I was a badass long before I ever touched a fucking nanolume.” As she spoke her hands came across and twisted the gun out of Hanniger’s unsuspecting grip, crushing her left hand in the process, and clearing and stripping the pistol as soon as it was clear of Hanniger’s grasp. She tossed the pieces away, right hand flying to her belt even as Hanniger whirled around. Katie blocked the punch Hanniger threw as she brought the stun gun up to Hanniger’s neck and depressed the trigger. 

Hanniger’s eyes fluttered almost comically as she dropped. 

“Luckily I’m also not an idiot, and I shot myself full of the antidote before I set foot on this god forsaken rock,” she said to no one, as she caught Hanniger and lowered her to the ground.

“She—she’s pregnant,” Aldis gasped, between pained pants.

“I know,” Katie admitted, “and your baby is fine, for now.” 

Relief and shame flashed in Aldis’ eyes. 

“I—” he started.

“Shut up, you’re bleeding,” Katie shushed him, her voice breaking a little as she let go of Hanniger, holstered the stun gun, checked to make sure the other weapons were clear of their immediate area, and sank to her knees in front of Aldis. “And pregnant or not, she’s still a genocidal rapist, and I’m not going to be any more gentle to her than I absolutely have to.” She began pulling tools and supplies from her vest as she spoke. “And don’t you dare make excuses for her,” Katie warned, pausing in her ministrations to wag her finger at Aldis.

“Katie,” Aldis said. It was not a statement, not a question, but a plea.

“I’ve got you,” she soothed, hands flying to the wound at his side, and taking in the blood that was already seeping from it. Hanniger had managed to twist the knife about a quarter turn after she’d stabbed, but even then Aldis was looking far too bad far too quickly. “Goddamnit!” Katie swore, consulting the scanner, she whipped out of her vest. “Bitch hit your liver. You’re bleeding internally.”

“She is a doctor,” Aldis deadpanned from gritted teeth. 

“Yeah, and she did a damn good job of doing nothing but harm to you.” Katie muttered, donning gloves and grabbing a prefilled syringe of Naiian-compatible broad-spectrum antibiotic and an alcohol swab. “Aldis,” she said as she administered the injection.

He didn’t respond.

“Aldis,” she said again, her voice firmer, more insistent. 

He stirred, his eyes focusing, finally seeing her rather than being lost on some far-off place. “Katie, how—am I dreaming?”

“If this is what your dreams are like, Aldis, I really don’t want to know... but yes, I am really here, and this is not a dream. Unfortunately, neither is the knife in your side. Hanniger missed your symbiote, but she nicked your liver, and I have to take the knife out because it’s too dangerous to leave in. If you move, if it moves... I’m not going to lie, this is going to suck, and you might bleed to death anyway, but I swear to god I will do everything in my power to get you out of this. But I need your help.”

“What?” Aldis asked his eyes refocusing before drifting away again. 

“Goddamnit, Colonel!” she barked. “Pay attention to me; that’s an order!”

Her words had the desired effect, and Aldis’ eyes focused on her once again, this time staying. “I need you to stop suppressing and focus on healing. You’re tamping down so hard you’re interfering with your reflexes. If there’s any way to boost your body’s procogitol production, you need to do it now.”

“It’s not safe,” he answered, shaking his head. 

His voice was small and lost and empty, and Katie watched in horror as the knife jiggled, slicing farther into his liver.

“Don’t. Move,” she ordered.

He stilled.

“I am so, so sorry, I have no idea what you’ve been through, and I know right now every instinct in your body is screaming at you, telling you to hide, telling you you’ll die if they find out—”

Aldis shuddered.

“—but I swear, right now, the only way to survive is to let go, let go and be yourself. Because you’re not healing fast enough. I can pack this wound, apply a pressure bandage, but it’s not going to be enough without your help.”

He looked up at her pleading. 

“Aldis, I can’t fucking carry you and carry that bitch too,” Katie pointed out.

Aldis looked over at Hanniger, an anguished expression on his face. He took a deep breath... and another... and he closed his eyes...

And _finally_ , Katie could feel the artificial walls around Aldis’ mind start to come down. He started to feel more Naiian and less alien, and Katie let out a long sigh. “Okay, be very still...” she let her voice soothe him.

She had the key. She had Aldis. Now all she had to do was signal Jensen, and hopefully they’d be all right.

~~~

**September 1, 2015, Seattle, Washington, Earth**

"You would do that? You would sacrifice yourself to me, just to save their lives?" Bellman asked skeptically, her voice flooding with a mixture of anticipation and genuine surprise. 

"If it's the price to give my people the opportunity to escape?" Jensen asked. 

General Bellman cocked an eyebrow.

"Then yes." Jensen spread his arms, palms out, showing they were open. "It's me you want. It's always been me. It wasn't just General Lehne behind my kidnapping. You were right there with him all the time." He paused, swallowing, his heart beating faster.

She didn't deny it. 

"All these years, a part of me has never stopped running. Even when I had a f--family," jis voice broke slightly, "even as I was building a home, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I couldn't let go, couldn't move on. For a long, long time, I thought it was Misha... that I just couldn't accept he was gone, but now I know. It was _you_ and everything you stand for. You've always been after me, and I know now you'll never stop. The longer I run, the more people I put in danger. I'm the Holy Grail of Naiian-kind as far as you're concerned. Well, here I am." He spread his arms wider, turning in a slow circle. "You've got me. Now you can stop your unholy crusade against my people."

Bellman took two steps towards him, her guards raising their weapons so they were trained on Jensen, but not her. "What makes you think I'm going to accept your offer? You come in here, unarmed," she began to circle Jensen, keeping her distance, "Nice touch if I might say."

"Thought you'd appreciate that," Jensen acknowledged through gritted teeth, forcing a smile. He doubted she bought it, but luckily, she didn't have to. 

"You can be quite charming when you want to be," Bellman mused. "But why would I stop at having you when you have absolutely no way to fight me? I don't see why I shouldn't take you and continue my... cleansing. Just because you say your people will leave doesn't mean some of them won't stand and fight. If I cure them, I solve my problem. Let them live as they are... and my lenience could come back to haunt me."

 

"Consider these settlement negotiations?" Jensen offered with a shrug.

Bellman stopped her slow circling to laugh, "Of course, you did start out as a sniveling litte lawyer, didn't you?" She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Hate to break it to you counselor, but I am a warrior. Not some legal-minded pawn you can control." She bacjed away suddenly and gestured, not to her personal guards but to the unit gathered near the edge of fhe roof behind her. "Kill him," she commanded.

"I said negotiations."

She paused midstride. 

"And youight want to know the conesequences before you do something irreversible."

She raised her hand to signal the strike team to stop and spun very slowly on her heel.

"What could you possi--"

"Well I'd say you probably wouldn't want the world, possibly every inhabited planet in the entire galaxy to know the truth, would you?" Jensen twitched his wrist and let the syringe slide lower.

"What truth?" she asked, an icy edge inching its way into her words as her back stiffened.

"Oh just that little detail you like to hide from everyone, except Dr. Hanniger and a few people who already knew whose memories you couldn't wipe." He didn't give her an opportunity to respond. "You're a Naiian. A Marker, one of us you hate so much. You're ashamed ofnwuat you are, and you wanted so much to be human you set about creating a way to change your species. You hired geneticists and conspired with the enemy, the same factions from the Licinian homeworld who tried to destroy Earth to cover their past crimes, and you had them design a gene resequencing program, not a vaccine, not a cure, and then you experimented on your fellow Naiians, members of your own species. You used us up and tossed us aside because you were too much of a coward to try the so-called cure yourself. And when you realized your cure took away our memories, stripped us of our identities, you didn't ask, you just saw it as an opportunity to control us, and ordered your scientists to keep on hammering away looking for the solution." Jensen took a step backward knowing it would take him farther out onto the glass portion of the roof.

Bellman took the bait and followed him. 

"How many of us have you controled, _erased_ , to make your perfect world? How many of them know what you did? What you took? How would you like your soldiers to know? How about everyone on this planet? In this sector? And how many of them would still follow you if they knew you're one of _us_? That you're still Naiian, because you're too chicken shit to take your own cure?"

"The side-effects--there's no point until we can avoid the amnesia--" Bellman said, half-to herself, but loud enough... loud _enough_ for the guards to hear her, and the unit at the edge of the roof, and... other important things. 

"So you admit it?" Jensen asked.

"I am trying to help you. To help all of us. I've given your kind the gift of humanity."

"It's not a gift when you're not human," Jensen said taking another step backward.

"You're an abomination!" she countered. 

"So are you," Jensen said, voice calm and even as she continued to follow him onto the glass. 

"I'm perfecting the process," she protested. 

"The process is never gonna get perfected," Jensen grit out. "Your gene resequencing steals our memories because it takes away one of our senses, and our brains can't interpret the data that's left behind."

"Guards!" Bellman threatened. 

"You want to keep that informatiom from landing in every inbox from here to the Fropali homeworld, you'll take my damn deal. If I don't send a specific message to my associates at a specific time in a predermined fashion that's exactly what's going to happen, so don't think you can kill me and bluff your way out if this," Jensen warned.

"So, if I let them go..." Bellman waved her hand for Jensen to continue.

"You let them leave Earth. You don't pursue them. I come willingly. I won't fight. I won't resist. You get what you want. Me as your guinea pig. You can do whatever you want with me." Jensen took another step backwards spreading his arms wider. He heard the glass creak underfoot, but he ignored it. "Experiment on me. Vivisect me. E--erase me," his voice cracked a little. "Whatever you need to do to perfect your treatment, make you feel safe, make you feel powerful. I'm all yours."

"Give me what I want, while threatening me with my worst nightmare," Bellman said, walking towards Jensen and beginning to circle him slowly, her heels clicking on the glass roof with every step. 

Jensen could feel her human guards getting restless. He couldn't read their minds, but he could read their body language, and they were twitchy, unsettled. He could almost see the wheels turning, the seeds of uncertainty and doubt, planted by his accusations, starting to take root thanks to Bellman's nondenial. They were hesitating, distracted. Add to that their human reflexes, and it would give Jensen the split-second advantage he needed. When Bellman called for them...

"Though I don't like the prospect of giving up my collateral. You may be the holy grail, Jensen, but you are just one man. And there is much work left to be done. What if your people were to come back?"

"I didn't say you couldn't defend your planet," Jensen gritted out. 

"So you would really give up Earth on behalf of your fellow Markers?" Bellman asked, seemingly amused. 

"Naiians, and we already lost Earth a long time ago," Jensen corrected. "I'm just tryint to free those of us who've been imprisoned here. You could see it as me getting them all out of your hair."

"Still... I do value--"

"You value it more than keeping your secret? You fucking killed or erased everyone else who knew, save the handful of researchers who've always been in your pocket."

"You do have a point," General Bellman admitted. "Still you can't blame a girl for wanting to have it all. It's just a shame you couldn't have come to your senses and turned yourself in a long time ago."

Jensen shrugged, a genuine grin, sad but true, creeping over his features. "What can I say, you can't blame a guy for wanting to have it all."

"Touché," General Bellman scolded. "Still, what assurances do I have that your people won't turn on me once you're in custody." 

"You let them leave; they leave you alone. It's all part of the deal. They fight back--"

"And the deal's off, I get it." Bellman stopped. She was standing in front of Jensen, between him and her guards and the strike team, but slightly offset so she wasn't blocking their line of fire. "Okay, you have a deal. Now surrender yourself to me strike team so we can get out of here."

Taking a breath to steel himself, Jensen took one more step backwards slowly, carefully lowered himself to his knees. "I surrender," he said, loosely linking his hands behind his head.

"You, General Jensen Ross Ackles, of the Naiian Army--"

"Aurora Defense Forces," Jensen interjected.

"Hereby forfeit your life and freedom in exchange for safe passage of those you refer to as Naiians from this planet?"

"I do, of course I do. It's who I am," Jensen replied. 

Bellman was close enough to reach out and touch him now, and Jensen could hear hairline stress fractures forming in the glass around them as Bellman's guards inched out onto the massive skylight. She was stalling for time, waiting for the other R teams and strike teams that had followed them from Texas to pinpoint their location. The... elevation and gap in the jamming field would only mess with their tracking system just so much. But that wasn't what captured Jensen's attention. 

The leader of the strike team had twitched when Jensen had promised to forfeit his life. 

The sequence of events that happened next, rapid as they were, would be forever etched in Jensen's memory. 

His comm beeped, a tiny chime outside the human hearing range. 

Half the strike team took a step forward. 

Bellman's fingers closed around Jensen's wrist, her grip like titanium pincers. 

"Thank you," she said, her face solemn for a split second before it pulled into a caricatured smile. "For being so eminently noble... and gullible.” General Bellman’s other hand came down on Jensen’s shoulder, her fingers digging into the muscle like claws. She leaned down, pulling Jensen up towards here. “I. Lied.”

Bellman released Jensen’s wrist and started to signal her guards and the strike team to attack. The guards were already advancing, the stress fractures spreading with every step. Behind them the strike team was moving, only half their minds were waking against Jensen’s gentle touch. No longer closed and alien, but familiar, _Naiian_.

The comm beeped again.

Jensen looked up at General Bellman through his eyelashes. “So did I.” He reached up with both hands, and grabbed her wrist, pulling her into Nullspace even as in real time the syringe continued its descent down his arm, into his hand, and pressed into the skin of her wrist. The world blinked out around them only to be replaced by a rush of white. Nothingness surrounded them, no sky, no ground, no sense of up or down. Jensen hadn’t been sure if he could manage it when he was conscious, but he was relieved to see he had pulled Bellman into the “waiting room” as Tony had phrased it, rather than into his personal construct… bringing his arch enemy into the most private corner of his mind, the place he shared with Misha would be an unspeakable violation and would give Bellman ammunition he didn’t want her to have. Besides, the nothingness of the waiting room was just disorienting (not to mention _Matrix-y_ ) enough to set Bellman completely off balance.

“Where are we?” she demanded. “Where are my guards? The strike team?”

"Oh, that's right," Jensen scoffed, "you never were very good at being a Naiian, were you?"

"To the contrary, I'm glad that I never had such unnatural talents," Bellman shot back looking around frantically.

"It's just too bad you royally suck at being a human being," Jensen replied. “We’re in Nullspace,” he explained taking pity on her confusion. “It’s a psychological representation of the telepathic plane that connects us all. Think of this as a space-time inversion. We’re still there in the real world, only here we’re nowhere and everything we’re doing is happening in an instant. We don’t have to be in the same physical place to share the same pocket of Nullspace, but physical contact is the easiest way to draw in someone unsuspecting or uneducated.”

“Then get your fucking hands off me!” Bellman demanded, shoving Jensen’s hands away and falling flat on her ass in the process. She looked around, head whipping side-to-side, eyes wide, behavior wild as if expecting the white nothingness to dissolve around them. 

“Oh, it doesn’t work like that. You can shove my hands off you in here, but out there, I’m still holding onto you, depressing the plunger on the syringe I just jammed into your wrist,” Jensen explained.

Bellman’s face twisted into an expression of abject shock and horror. “You’re curing me. Only it will wipe my memory.”

“ _No_ ,” Jensen replied emphatically, “That’s something you might do, but I, for one, don’t support stripping people of their identities or forcibly mutating them into a different species. I’ll leave those abominations up to you and your pet doctors. What I _am_ doing, is giving you a large dose of panantiproponol.”

Bellman’s eyes popped wider still before relaxing. “What do you think that’s going to do? Like you said, I’ve never been a very good Naiian.”

“Oh, you may not have any skill with telepathy or language and you might be too _scared_ to open your own wormholes, but you’ve got the same senses as any other Naiian, and you’ve been using those, whether you understood it or not, and it includes the empathy you naturally use to get a read on people in your surroundings. The panantiproponol is going to cut that off, and you’re going to start to understand why your stupid ‘cure,’ causes amnesia. Oh, and it will pop you out of Nullspace pretty quickly too.”

“You’re lying,” Bellman said. Only the world dissolved around them again, when she spoke, and the words came out half-spoken in the real world.

“No I’m not,” Jensen said, with a small chuckle.

“You said you were lying,” she snapped.

“Oh, that. I never had any intention of being captured, and I’ve been broadcasting this little encounter since the moment you and your minions landed on the roof. It’s been streaming to your troops on every base, it’s all over the internet, and I’ve sent it to every news station I could contact, and I’ve even got a life feed headed up to the Fropali Mothership. Everyone in the galaxy is already listening to you. Learning about your crimes firsthand.”

Bellman glared, hatred flashing in her eyes. “Well, I guess you’ve given everyone front row seats to your execution and the ultimate destruction of your kind.” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder. “Strike team—”

Half the strike team’s rifles—a mix of plasma rifles and M-16s, aimed at Jensen.

“No General, I’m afraid you’re wrong,” he murmured. Then, meeting the eyes of the strike team’s commander from across the sloped expanse of glass between them, he said and projected, “Not everything is as it seems.” He braced himself, opening the connection between himself and his symbiote, feeling out the gaps in the jamming field, sensing the location of the people in the mall below, listening to the cracks in the glass…

“Fire!” Bellman ordered.

The strike team rushed onto the glass, hot on the heels of Bellman’s personal guard. Half the team fired, but Jensen and General Bellman were already falling through the breaking glass, forming the center of the torrent of falling shards and debris. 

Jensen wished he could guard the innocent civilians from the rain of destruction, but it was all he could do with Bellman clawing at him, to feel out one of the gaps, slip through a crevice, and open a wormhole to safer ground. He spared a thought for the strike team, hoping somehow they—at least the friendly members—managed to find solid ground, but that was all he could manage as he fell. The aperture opened beneath them, and they exited sideways, falling with a skid and an angry thud onto the relatively unscathed tile of the third floor balcony on the far side of the mall’s gaping central atrium, away from the glass roof’s expanse. The long slide stopped abruptly when they slammed into the resident Trophy Cupcake cart, sending shoppers scrambling and diving out of their way as frosting and cake went flying in all directions, some falling over the railing and down to the atrium floor three storeys below, others cascading down around Jensen and Bellman’s heads, still others launched towards the escalators.

“I’ll kill you!” Bellman drew her sidearm, aiming it at Jensen’s chest.

Shoppers screamed and dove for cover. 

Jensen rolled to the side and narrowly dodging the first bullet, and taking two more to the back where they slammed into his Kevlar and deflective mesh, forcing the air from his lungs. His nose filled with the smell of cordite and burned synthetics despite his lack of breath. The bullets had hit on his left side where he couldn’t really feel the impact, but the immediate effects made it pretty clear he’d probably broken a rib or two at the very least. He opened another aperture on instinct, but almost lost his grasp on the exit when Bellman grabbed his ankle and dragged herself through after him. 

Rather than coming out on the other side of the atrium, Jensen landed more or less _on_ the sloped, wood-topped railing that ringed the chasm at the mall’s center. He managed to fall over onto the floor, rolling as he did so and rising into a crouch, hand slapping to his side where his sidearm was miraculously still fastened.

He could hear exit apertures opening and closing with resounding snaps. Too many for him to count. Too many locations to make out. Someone—a lot of someones, were here, but who? The ORDA backup Bellman had been expecting? Or some of the ADF? Maybe a mix of both.

Jensen drew and fired, but the shots went wide and Jensen and his sidearm, went clattering to the floor as he was struck from behind by panicked civilians. The XDm was kicked away as a dozen or so people stampeded overhead, running for the escalator before realizing it was headed “up,” only. Someone realized too late, and slipped tumbling down the up escalator and knocking over several more people on the way. 

More apertures opened and closed—one of them almost directly behind him—as Jensen curled to a ball and rolled himself out of the way of foot traffic. 

“You hear that?” Bellman asked as she struggled to her feet from where she’d managed to haul herself over the bannister. “Your little rebellion is over. Two hundred of my best troops are descending on this building as we speak. Your fellow abominations are trapped. The jamming fields will stop them from leaving the planet, and if they manage to, I’ll track them and find them. And just in case you have any illusions that your particular flavor of unnatural inhumanity was going to survive, before you die, I’ll make sure to extract the coordinates of Miradoma from your mind. We’ll put an end to this infection the Licinians’ spread—”

“It’s called Aurora—” a familiar voice said from behind him.

Jensen’s eyes went wide as a tendril of hope unfurled deep inside. 

“—and I’m afraid not all of us here are your loyal strike teams,” Misha said calmly. 

“Colonel Collins, I don’t understand,” Bellman protested, pointing a finger at Jensen. “This man is General Jensen—” 

“Ackles, my husband, I know.” Misha stepped around Jensen and into view.

“But you were _cured_!” Bellman shouted, looking around in shock as two more wormholes opened on either side of her. 

“Your _cure_ , didn’t work,” Misha answered.

“It never worked,” Jensen added, pulling himself to his feet, using one of the tables set out in a lounge area in front of the escalator for support. “All it did was interfere with Naiian genetics for a while and delay the return of our normal sensory functioning.”

“Stand down, sir. I need to place you under arrest,” another officer—a Naiian—said.

“Arrest?” Bellman asked. 

“For war crimes, violations of the Geneva conventions, 37 separate violations of the ORDA charter, 539 counts of issuing illegal orders, conspiracy to commit genocide, commission of genocide, 24 counts of related murders—” a third officer added. 

“You can’t be serious. They aren’t even _human_ —”

“Neither are you,” Jensen replied. “Besides, last I checked, persecution, torture, and execution of sentient beings without due process of law has always been in violation of our treaty with the Fropali Alliance… you just never bothered to care.”

Events happened in a flash. Bellman dove for Jensen’s gun.  
Jensen dove after her. He hit the ground hard, dislocating his shoulder, as they skidded across the slick tile floor, glass shards from the fallen ceiling digging into his face and arm as they slid.

Bellman for all her playing dumb and preference for not getting her hands dirty, was still a fully trained ORDA general with two decades of combat experience before she got herself promoted to riding a desk. She fought dirty and hard. Elbows jabbing Jensen in the ribs, another in the kidney. Jensen only knew because it was suddenly impossible to breathe. She kicked. He kicked. She got a hand up under him and flipped them both on their backs, her arm coming up like a bar and crushing Jensen’s throat.  
Jensen struggled trying to throw Bellman off him, but she was too well-seated. So, he reached up and gouged at her eyes forcing her to squeeze her eyes shut and arch away. 

It was all the distraction he needed to reach out with this other hand, pull the XDm to him, and open a wormhole. He was dimly aware of Misha’s panicked screaming, of falling, of Bellman struggling against him, trying to collapse his windpipe even as they fell.

Something was wrong… the aperture wasn’t opening. Spots were forming in his eyes, and he couldn’t think couldn’t _connect_ as his symbiote struggled to find a way through the maze of jamming without Jensen’s active help. Finally, it opened, and they slid out the other side, only there was no place to land. Jensen realized, belatedly, he and Bellman were skimming past the second floor railing on one of the curved sides of the atrium, aiming directly for a metal railing on a shallow staircase one floor below. He reached out with his left hand, fingers slapping and sliding against the glass paneling that bridged the space between floor and railing. His fingers managed to get purchase, only to slip again. Panic rose in his throat for the first time since setting foot on Earth, only suddenly, warm, familiar fingers closed around his wrist, anchoring him in place. 

Jensen’s descent stopped with a sickening lurch, jerking his already-injured shoulder further out of socket. He looked up to find Misha leaning over the railing, holding onto his arm. “My guys have got me. Let me pull you up,” Misha said.

“Bellman—” Jensen replied, cut off as the offending ORDA officer, made her presence known, tightening her grasp on Jensen’s ankle and pulling down, trying to send him—and Misha—plummeting to the ground with her.

“No,” Jensen said, realizing his sidearm was still in his good hand. In one swift movement, he aimed, glanced down the sights, and squeezed the trigger, shooting Bellman in the head.

The General let go of his ankle as the shot rang out, and her lifeless body fell to the floor below with a sickening smack.

Dizziness threatened to overwhelm Jensen as Misha and his fellow soldiers pulled Jensen up and over the balcony.

“I couldn’t let her live,” he murmured to no one in particular, “couldn’t take the chance she would come back to haunt me. Come after me. Come after any of us. I owed it to our people to keep them safe.”

“No one’s going to blame you,” Misha said, pulling Jensen into his chest. 

After so long. More than two and a half years of mourning, struggling to understand, soul searching, and impossible telepathic rendezvous… “Misha?” Jensen asked, voice small and quiet with disbelief.

“It’s me. I’m here. I’m alive.” He pressed a kiss to Jensen’s temple. “And thanks to you, I remember. I remember everything.” He leaned back, gazing into Jensen’s eyes. “I hate to break up our reunion, but there’s still a war going on, and Bellman wasn’t lying when she said ORDA troops were descending on her location. Some of them are already here. We gotta get out of here!”

“No, not just yet,” Jensen protested.

“What, why?”

“I have to go down there.” Jensen holstered his weapon and pointed at the floor below. “There’s something I have to retrieve from her body.”

“What? Could possibly—”

“It’s the key,” one of the other Naiians said, his uniform listed his name as Chau. “Her key to the worldwide jamming network.

“Yes,” Jensen answered with a nod. 

“But there are three keys—” Misha protested.

Jensen nodded, “And my teams retrieved the other two while we were up there on the roof. I waited to surrender until I received both confirmations. We retrieve this key, and we can leave. All of us. Everyone I left behind. We can all go _home_.”

“To Aurora?” Misha asked, hopefully.

“Yes.”


	12. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**_ADF Collins_ —Geosynchronous Orbit Above Aurora City**

Katie approached the holding cell toward the aft of the _Collins_ and surveyed the woman inside. She wasn’t shackled, just sitting on a bunk looking defiant. Katie shuddered, it was hard to believe this woman had been responsible for, or at least instrumental in, so much suffering.

“What? Come to lecture me into keeping my alien spawn?” Alexis Hanniger asked, clearly having noticed Katie’s approach.

Katie just hit the control panel on the door of the cell, keyed in the code to open the door and entered. “As a doctor and a being capable of bearing children, it would be unconscionable for me to demand you do anything with regard to your pregnancy, doctor. Terminate it or carry to term, that choice is yours,” she cocked her head to the side, regarding Hanniger closely. “Although I supposed it would make it easier on you if I did something… monstrous because it would fit with the image you have of us in your mind.”

Hanniger crossed her arms and looked away. “If it’s really my choice then—”

“What I cannot let you do, however, is experiment on a fetus or torture a child. Whatever plans you had to use yourself as an incubator for a Naiian genetics project—” she shook her head. “Consider those plans cancelled.”

Hanniger began to speak, but Katie shook her finger, cutting her off.

“I’m also here to inform you formal charges will be issued and you will be indicted for rape.”

“He consented!” Hanniger scoffed.

“He was undercover in a situation where he knew his cover had been blown or was about to be, and you knew exactly who and what he was. He couldn’t say ‘no’; he couldn’t do anything but comply with your wishes and play a role, and you _knew_ that. That eviscerates any defense you had to him being a clandestine agent. Of course the circumstances might sway a jury, if not for the reason behind your actions… I think you’ll find the jury pool a bit… hostile to your vision of eugenics.”

“What? No military tribunal?” Hanniger asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

“Last I checked, _Doctor_ , you are a civilian and always have been,” Katie answered. “I apologize for the accommodations, but we don’t exactly have a civilian prison system, and we can’t exactly guarantee your safety anywhere else.”

“So what happens to me now?” Hanniger asked, for the first time sounding uncertain.

“Like I said, terminating the pregnancy, or not; that’s your choice. If you decide to terminate, we will provide the medical or surgical means. If you choose to continue… your child will be loved and raised by people who care about hir as an individual and not some sick genetics project.”

Hanniger had the decency to flinch and look away.

“All I ask is that whatever you decide, you don’t try to kill yourself or get any stupid ideas about self-terminating. If you did that, Aldis would blame himself. He’d be wrong,” Katie added firmly, “but he would, and I can’t let you hurt him any more than you already have. So, I am asking you to think about it. Make a decision, and take advantage of the options we are offering to you. If I get so much as a hint you’re thinking about doing something stupid, I’ll put you on suicide watch, and you _won’t_ like the result.” With that, Katie stood and walked to the door, which slid open as it sensed the proximity of her ident badge.

“I thought you weren’t a monster?” Hanniger spat as Katie reached the threshold.

Hand resting on the doorframe, Katie steeled herself, sucking in a long breath and letting it go. It wouldn’t serve well for everyone on the ship to feel her rage. When she was confident she had her emotions under wraps, she turned and looked back at Hanniger. In here, she was just a woman in a cell, on a bunk, lost, relatively harmless. It was hard to believe she’d been the architect of a plan that had almost destroyed two worlds. “I’m not. _We’re_ not monsters. But we’re not lab rats either, and I’m a very, very good friend,” Katie added. “Don’t push me. Think about it.” And she turned and strode out the door, letting the cell close and lock behind her, already pushing Alexis Hanniger from her mind. 

After all, they were building a new world there was no room for hate.

~~~

**_ADF Collins_ —Geosynchronous Orbit Above Aurora City, Later that Day**

“It really is beautiful,” Misha murmured. “More beautiful even than it seemed when you showed me in Nullspace.

“Are you ready to go down there? See the world I’ve built first hand?” Jensen asked.

“On one condition,” Misha replied.

“What’s that?” Jensen asked, confused. 

“That you go with me,” Misha answered with a smile.

“Always,” Jensen agreed, reaching out to take Misha by the hand. The aperture opened easily without interference or hesitation, instinctive and natural, and they stepped through it together and exited in the brilliant purple afternoon sun of Aurora. 

It was really good to be home, at last.

_The End_

**Author's Note:**

>   
> **About the story:**
> 
> This story is the culmination of an idea I had back in 2010 while writing [The Sword of Stars](http://paleogymnast.livejournal.com/37039.html) for the 2010 [Spn_J2_BigBang](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com). Since then it has spiraled and expanded from one story into three novel-length books. This last one was the hardest to write (and took the longest). Of all the stories I've written this one and this 'verse feels the most unfinished, to me as a writer. For every story I tell there are three more waiting in the wings explaining how the characters got to where they are. For every action sequence there's a half-dozen intimate moments—conversation, personal reflection, grief, day-in-the-life moments—that need to be told (or want to be told). I have managed to cram many of those scenes and stories in here, but many more remain unwritten or on the cutting room floor. I have tried to remain true to the parameters of the challenge for which I am writing this fic (which requires it remain centric on Jensen and or Jared), and I do hope I have achieved that despite the enormous cast of characters.
> 
> What started out as a fun project, something different to write for a fanfic challenge, has turned into a universe I've taken to heart. The characters feel like my own, and I care about what happens to them and where they go next. That kind of attachment makes it all the more difficult to part with the story and put it out there for everyone to see. I keep thinking about what I'll do in the next part, only now there are no more scheduled "next parts" left.
> 
> So, while this story is "done," I am not entirely sure I am finished with this 'verse or if it is finished with me. There are more stories to tell—prequels, behind the scenes, other POVs, epilogues. There are also edits and rewrites I would like to do with this story (and the previous two in the 'verse). Over time everything from stray remaining typos to small continuity errors to the occasional face-palm inducing usage error (that managed to slip past three sets of eyes!) have grown more irksome. We shall see what happens both in terms of rewrites of what's already been posted and in terms of writing more fic—deleted scenes, back story, time stamps and the like. 
> 
> As for _this_ fic, if you do see something that seems like a glaring error, please let me know (politely), so I can clean it up. My betas and I are all working adults with more-than-full-time day jobs, and there's always something that we miss, especially when sleep deprived (as we were when working on this) and especially on something this long. We try to make it pretty for your reading pleasure (and ours), but we're not infallible, and we don't have the time or resources of a publishing house or full editorial staff.
> 
> Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed the story (and its predecessors, if you read them). To my mind this 'verse is both cinematic and epic in scope and intensely personal and character-driven. Striking a balance between those internal motivations, inner monologue, and thought processes and the big, broad, sweeping, expanse of space, space ships, alien worlds, epic battles, and alien technology has been the biggest challenge for this story. I hope you like the balance I've struck.
> 
> As for themes, content, triggers, violence, sex, language, and everything else. I am sure there is something in here I've written or done that will offend some of you. My primary motivation in writing is always to please myself. I write what _I_ want to read, and that means exploring sticky subjects, situations, and character motivations. I recognize the way I explore them may not be the way you would, and I may go to some places you would not, but I still hope you will enjoy the story. If you have a question about a potential trigger or content, just ask. I will do my best to answer.
> 
> To me, as both a writer and a reader, the greatest thing about science fiction is the vehicle it provides for exploring aspects the human condition that are otherwise difficult to fathom or explore, by giving us new contexts and new situations within which to ponder and contemplate without any of the hang-ups, prejudices, and blind spots of reality and everyday life.
> 
> By choosing to set this story five minutes in the future in an alternate universe only a stone's throw from our own, I've managed to bring some of our modern day baggage along for the ride. I've put characters in situations that push them past their limits and left them hanging in a moral and ethical no-man's-land. Please remember that the characters are not _me_ , and their choices do not necessarily echo my own.
> 
> With that in mind, thank you for reading, commenting, and coming along for the ride.


End file.
